Wardenclyffe
by That-Other-Doctor
Summary: In 1895, Nikola Tesla, the greatest mind the world has never known, conducted experiments with electromagnetic fields that opened a doorway in time. But his apparently discredited claim to temporal incursion didn't fade into insignificancy as history thought to believe, and soon the 6th Doctor, Peri Brown, and Frobisher are caught in a paradox that could tear the universe apart!
1. Prologue: American Humor

_"If he had a needle to find in a haystack he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once, with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search . . . I was almost a sorry witness of such doings, knowing that a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety per cent of his labor."_

_— Nikola Tesla, New York Times, October 19, 1931 —_

* * *

The night of the 30th of March, in the year of Our Lord 1884, was cold, damp, and miserable. The brilliance of New York City was set awash by the watercolor blur of falling rain, pinging like icy, spotty bullets off the misty windows of the buildings and the bowler-hatted heads of the commuters. At such a late hour, so close to midnight as made no difference, most people were safely tucked away indoors: the wealthy in their townhouses lining 5th Avenue, and the general masses in their slummy, disgustingly soiled tenements inundating the East Side.

In such a time the division between rich and poor was easily discernible. Deific men dressed in well-tailored suits walked as if on air over the bent backs of soot-encrusted men, women, and children, who toiled for 18 hours a day, seven days a week, just to keep their families fed. In New York City, the "Golden Door" to the new world, such a social and economic divide was as shameless and flagrant as the prostitutes walking 7th Avenue. The influx of immigrants scraped the millions –impoverished souls were escaping both persecution and execution in their homelands. They saw America as the gateway to a better life, and had settled in the urban squalor of New York City. Very soon, such stalwart optimism was replaced, or rather smothered, by the crushing blows of reality. The case was such that new land did not necessarily mean new life, and that dire consequences can come from investing a livelihood in a mere, ghosting dream.  
Though his fate would soon mirror those of the hundreds of thousands of wretches suppressed in the underbelly of the city, the Serbian electrician Nikola Tesla did not consider his indeterminate fate on that late March night. He had much more important tasks to attend to, tasks that if proven successful in the eyes of his own personal suppressor, would usher in a new era of fortune for the poor man from Eastern Europe.

He was bent over the workings of a complex set of electronic equipment, the would-be keys to his edification. Wires, transformers, and primitive skeletons of exhausted batteries littered the workbench like the debris of some monumental landslide. Despite the untidiness of his station, the table was clean, and the various devices polished until they gleamed in the low lightning like newly-minted coins. The materials had been polished with an almost obsessive fervor, for the kakiphobic inventor could not stand dirt.

As the grandfather clock in the hall struck midnight, Tesla wound the last coil of shiny wire around the internal motor of a primary dynamo. The final detail to the new-and-improved direct current generator was complete.

He felt an inner glow of pride and contentment blossom within his chest, a sort of sensual pleasure that came from the satisfaction of having an imaginative design become concrete reality. Tesla knew no other sensation as wonderful, as fulfilling, as completing a project. He did not think there was any thrill that could go through the human heart like that felt by an inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. Such emotions, Tesla believed, made a man forget food, sleep, friends, love . . . everything.

There was a man working in the room adjacent to Tesla's workshop. It was that man the young Serb summoned,

"Thomas! I have done it. I have finished."

Tesla's English was near immaculate, but accented by a strong undercurrent of his Southern-European brogue. His quiet voice very rarely reached a level powerful enough to alert the man in the next room, but this particular man was quick to respond when the unusual occasion presented itself.

"What in God's name are you talking about? It's the middle of the night!"

The late hour, in actuality, did not perturb the visitor, for he too had been working long into the night. The newcomer was stocky, balding, and physically unremarkable, but possessed a keen, intelligent blue-green gaze that could command the attention of everyone in the room. That gaze, and the charisma of a human being used to getting what he wanted and intolerant of anything less than the best, had transformed an illiterate student from Ohio into one of the most lucrative entrepreneurs of the age.

"Your generator, Thomas," insisted Tesla, a quiver of excitement creeping its way into his even voice, "I have improved upon it."

"My direct current generator . . . what about it?" Thomas Alva Edison crossed his arms defiantly and considered his six foot six inch tall associate behind a mask of weary indifference, which concealed the dark enmity bubbling beneath the surface.

Tesla continued, oblivious to his Mr. Tamers's black mood, "After months of work, and by adding new automatic controls of my own design, I have increased the economy and service of the device to a point where such commonplace breakdowns have been decreased by a factor surpassing 70 percent."

"I'm surprised to see you this excited about it, Mr. Tesla," said Edison, trying and failing to keep a teasing edge from his words, "given up on your alternating current idea so soon?"

Nikola Tesla's expression went sour. "You have closed your mind to the possibility of utilizing my invention, therefore I see no reason to waste my breath further. It is clear to me that reputation, pride, and monetary gain trump common sense in your case."

Edison seethed, "Spare me that nonsense. AC is dangerous. We're set up for direct current in America. People like it, and it's all I'll ever fool with."

"Polyphase power transmission is the future, Thomas. Accept that, or the future will leave you behind."

"Then why, pray tell, put the better part of a year's work into improving the already-established DC generators, if their anachronistic natures so offend you?" asked Edison with scathing sarcasm.

"The 50,000 dollars you owe me," Tesla said evenly, "I deserve my due payment."

Edison's mouth twisted into a scowl, but he snatched Tesla's diagrams from the workbench and with a flick of his hand began to thumb through the pages. Tesla waited patiently, still and completely unruffled in his stiff-collared white shirt and black Prince Albert coat. Though dark rings from wanton lack of sleep framed his sharp eyes, Tesla, being a kakiphobic, was clean-shaven and perfectly groomed, which contrasted greatly with Edison's own scruffy appearance. Tesla's obsessive cleanliness was one of the many details about the Serb that set Edison's teeth on edge.

"Typical. I could make more sense of children's scribble."

Tesla answered calmly, "I have no need for diagrams in my work, as you well know. I have made a few rudimentary sketches for your benefit and your benefit alone. I trust you do not need my assistance in interpreting them?"

Edison snapped the notebooks shut, and placed them delicately back on the desk. Though he did not care for the man, he was mindful not to move any of Tesla's equipment.

"It will work,"agreed Edison, his voice hoarse and as dry as autumn leaves.

"The acknowledgement is appreciated of course, sir, but I would insist . . . the 50,000?"

Edison snorted, "50,000 dollars, Tesla?! You must be joking. You know as well as I that my company does not possess that kind of money on hand."

Tesla could feel his composure crumbling, his well-concealed temper sparking like the bolts of lightning illuminating the darkened New York City skyline. "You and I struck a bargain, Thomas. 50,000 dollars if I could repair the faulty DC generators. We shook on the matter."

"Tesla," said Edison, steeling his blue-green eyes, "you don't understand our American humor."

Nikola Tesla felt as though all the power of his alternating current were shocking him from the inside. His emotions were beyond simple disbelief and anger. He felt hurt, betrayed, and deeply insulted by the notion that Thomas Alva Edison, businessman, inventor, and complete plagiarizing _budalast_, had taken him for a fool!

"Very well," Tesla managed stiffly, "this, therefore, will be the formal notice of my resignation."

Edison had been expecting a plethora of different responses, and Tesla quitting was not one of them. He crossed his arms again and stared at the inventor from behind the rims of his glasses. "You don't mean that."

"I most certainly do!" Tesla swung around and snatched his derby hat from the back of his work chair. Placing it with decisive finality on his mop of jet-black hair, he turned and gave his former employer a withering glare. "Good evening to you, sir. I will see myself off the premises."

Edison found himself insisting, "I will raise your salary by 10 dollars to 28 dollars a week."

"Do not further insult me, Mr. Edison. Good evening." Tesla turned to leave.

"You won't last five days out there in the real world, Nikola Tesla. You haven't got a financially-literate bone in your body. Do you remember the Tesla Electric Light Company in Rahway, New Jersey, that beautiful arc lamp of yours, how those investors forced you out of your own business? You had nothing but worthless stock certificates to show for it before you came crawling back to me!"

The memory stung. It had been the greatest blow of Tesla's young life, but he did not allow Edison's cruel recollection to rail him. "I will make something of myself, Thomas Alva Edison. Alternating current will be the death of direct current."

"And your own pride will be the death of you!" retaliated Edison, before the door slammed shut, and Nikola Tesla had taken his leave of the Edison Machine Works forever.

* * *

The walk from the front doors of the Machine Works estate into the cold night of downtown New York City was one of the longest of Tesla's collective memory. Everywhere he went, shadowy figures peered at him from cloaked doorways and probing eyes stalked him down the street. Tesla didn't give the curious rabble much thought, and he didn't need to; he had nothing of value for them to steal, save for a few coins and the remnants of his polyphase dynamo. The rain continued to fall, and the thunderstorm thickened as the dark night wore on. Tesla considered more than once returning to Edison's facilities, but the thought of clapping eyes on that sneering, craven-hearted plagiarist again always made him quick to push the idea out of his mind. Though Tesla was a quiet, humble man, even he could not bear to face the shame and humiliation of admitting that Thomas Alva Edison had been right all along.

Nevertheless, Tesla feared he would not, in fact, last five days beyond the security of Edison's employment. New York City was supposed to be the gateway to the land of opportunity, but somehow, it had a way of crushing dreams as well as inspiring them.

"You look a little sodden, my friend. Both figuratively, and literally."

Tesla glanced up, or rather down, to see that he had been joined on his late night stroll by a small, dark man in a long overcoat. The stranger's collar was turned up against the rain, and from Tesla's considerable height, the lamps shadowed his face in such a way as to make his features all but indistinguishable. But his coat was expensive, and his small black beard was well-trimmed, so Tesla did not feel any immediate sense of urgency. Such was the inescapable bias that stemmed from the social gap of 19th Century America: well-dressed meant friendly.

"With all due respect, sir, I have had a bit of a trying evening, and would prefer to walk in peace. Alone," said Tesla, his tone rigid with frost.

"Not at all, my fine man." The stranger had a British accent: deep and somewhat garbled by the fabric of his coat. "Though, I could not help but notice the prototype dynamo for alternating current you are carrying in your front pocket. A most fascinating piece of equipment."

Tesla froze. Sure enough, that was where his hand fondled the device, more precious to him than any amount of gold or jewels, or all the money in robber-baron Edison's bank account. "It is not for sale."

"No, of course not," the stranger laughed good-naturedly, "but, I would venture to put forth a proposition to you, one concerning your well-renowned interest in alternative power systems, Nikola Tesla."

"Who are you?" demanded Tesla. "How do you know who I am?"

The little man folded down the flaps of his collar, to reveal stern features accented by wickedly sharp grey eyes and a pitch black goatee that could have come off the face of the Devil himself. He smiled in a way that made Tesla considerably uneasy.

"I am the Master," he announced with a sense of grandeur, "and you, Nikola Tesla, will obey me."


	2. Chapter 1: A Great And Profound Truth

_"Most certainly, some planets are not inhabited, but others are, and among these there must exist life under all conditions and phases of development."_

_— Nikola Tesla, New York Times, October 23, 1909 —_

* * *

_Light._

Bright, agonizing, exploding light.

It burst from behind his closed eyelids in an actinic pyrotechnic display, blazing across his corneas and hammering his head with psychokinetic flashes of pain. He was drowning in a luminous sea of phosphorescence and irradiation, beautiful and terrible in its all-consuming brilliance. The talons of the light's fingers clawed for control of his psyche, tearing through mind and matter in a crazed, desperate scrabble to assume a foothold. Its sharp barbs penetrated his skin, sliding uninhibited into the folds of his flesh like subcutaneous needles. They ensnared his stomach and twisted it into complex sailor knots. They plunged into his lungs and hauled them up into the recesses of his throat. His organs flip-flopped until his liver lay nestled where his intestine had once been and his hearts had filled the double-vacancy left by his lungs. His innards were horribly shaken up and discarded again in a hodgepodge assortment of randomness, like dice thrown out of a Yahtzee tin and into a smoothie blender.

It hurt.

Regeneration was peanuts compared to this agony. His entire body, his entire being, wasn't simply changing. It was being wrenched out of shape, molded like cosmic clay into ungodly, twisted aberrations insulting to the very definitions of "form" and "existence". He was coming apart at the seams, ripping into multicolored ribbons, scattering himself on the temporal winds, falling into the black maw of the Time Vortex. He felt himself being shredded by the teeth of eternity and by an indescribable power more agonizing and more irresistible than any in the universe.

He was lost. He was almost lost. He had been lost since the beginning of forever.

When the curtains of dark, swamping oblivion finally sought to smother the ravaging claws of light, he welcomed the cascade with open arms, and fell into blissful, unfathomable nihility . . .

* * *

The Doctor awoke sprawled like a snow angel across the console room floor with every bone in his body aching and his head singing with the mother of all migraines. His golden hair was matted with sweat and knotted into a tangled, spaghettied mass of curls. His hands were clenched into fists, his arms were badly bruised as though he'd fought for his life in a prize fight. His cherubic features pinched in pain as he arched his back, attempting in a truly heroic effort to lift himself off the floor.

The Doctor was, under normal circumstance, quite agile, despite his ample frame. But the good 30 seconds spent hauling himself from the ground and into a semi-crouching position were by and far the most difficult 30 seconds of the past century. His body seemed to weigh a ton; his limbs were as heavy as solid lead. As he swung around to gaze dazedly at the fuzzy contours of the console room, the soreness in his head intensified to a thumping ache.  
"Who replaced my brain with a timpani?" wondered the Doctor, his words slurred with exhaustion as he reached up to bridge of his nose. He was forced to blink several times to clear the kaleidoscope of colors dancing on the edges of his sight. He dared to open his eyes a tiny bit wider as the chroma melted away like ink blotted on paper.

It took a while for the room to stop prancing around. When his vision finally settled down, what the Doctor saw made him sigh in woe and disbelief. The interior décor of the TARDIS had been thrown apart like the discarded wrappings and bows of last year's Christmas gifts. The hatstand had somehow become wedged between the hallway door and lay halfway down the corridor. Multiple control panels had detached themselves from the central console and were scattered willy-nilly across the floor, Scrabble tiles on a game board. A roundel was swinging back and forth on the wall, its wiry innards exploding into a tangled mess of cables and blinking circuits that spilled onto the floor. The small, cozy chaise longue Peri insisted on keeping had been upended and propped against the time rotor.  
The Doctor's blood froze.

_Peri . . ._

He was on his feet in seconds, migraine forgotten, his aches and pains banished to the recesses of his mind.

"Peri! Peri!" called the Doctor. His powerful voice cracked from dehydration and exhaustion. He cleared his throat a few times, and bellowed, "Perpugilliam Brown! Frobisher! Anybody!"

Nobody answered him. Even the TARDIS was quiet, a mere hum muffled by the weight of silence. It was if the entire ship had stopped herself breathing, trying to fade into the background quiet . . .

The Doctor bellowed again, "Peri! Frobisher!"

"Oh, shut up."

A slightly nasal female voice, accented with the twang of Northeastern America, answered from behind the mushroom-shaped control console.  
There was a pile of radiant color bunched into a heap on the floor, near the front doors of the TARDIS. Red plaid clashed with lapels of checked blue. Rosy pink and maroon arms were accented by cuffs of stripy bumblebee yellow. A line of blue fabric ran down the seam of the back and divided forest green cloth from grey-purple stitching. The interior of the lively accoutrement was a silky, effulgent heliotrope.

Tangled in the midst of the Crayola factory explosion of the Doctor's coat was a young woman. She had an attractive face, and short brown hair cut into an ear-length bob that was just beginning to curl at the edges. The minutest of smile crinkles marked the corners of her expressive mouth and large eyes, as if she were used to laughing.

Perpugilliam Brown was anything but laughing now.

The Doctor felt an immense flood of relief flow through him. Peri looked bashed-up, dizzy, and more than a little irritated, but otherwise unharmed. The Doctor, however, ever the bombastic narcissist, hid his feelings well under a mask of mock annoyance. He bounded over to the Peri-coat pile in two huge leaps and considered his young companion with the degrading expression of a fed-up parent or an exasperated school teacher.

He asked, his words harsh and clipped, "Whatever are you doing down there for, Peri Brown?"

She fixed him with a dark glower lethal enough to melt lead. Her reply was dripping with sarcasm. "Oh, you know how it is, Doctor. A girl needs her power nap in the corner of the console room every once in a while."

"Do you now?" He smirked. "I can't say I envy you. Who knows how many boot marks have been left down there over the years . . ."

Peri rolled her eyes, and as she did, the folds of the Doctor's coat caught her attention. She picked up a sleeve between two slim fingers and considered it with obvious disgust, dangling it three inches in front of her face like one would a dirty pair of knickers.

"Why the hell am I wrapped up in your coat?" She shot him an accusing glare.

"How should I know?" huffed the Doctor indignantly. "The last few . . . hours, days, weeks? . . . have been a bit of a blur."

"You haven't been drinking, have you?"

"Perish the thought, Perpugilliam Brown!"

She decided not to pursue that particular train of thought for fear of igniting the mother of all tantrums. "I tell you what, though, my eyesight is what's blurry right now, Doctor. And this horrible coat isn't helping."

The Doctor was completely mortified. His baby blue eyes widened as he cried, "Peri, that's because you've drooled on it!"

"I have not!"

"You have so! Look at the sleeve! Look at it!" The Doctor jabbed his fist at the cuff Peri was holding. His voice had gone rough and squeaky with horror. "It's all sticky!"

Peri harrumphed in disdain. Ignoring the Doctor's yelps of protest, she bundled the gaudy coat under one arm and got unsteadily to her feet. She was dressed in her "bumming around the TARDIS" outfit, blue jeans that looked as though they had been slicked on and a tatty Baltimore Ravens t-shirt saved from some forgotten hamper in the wardrobe. The clothes were clean and smelled like dryer sheets, but after whatever "it" was that had happened to them, Peri felt tired and haggard and unclean, like one does after being on an airplane for too long. She took about five exaggerated steps with the intent of bunging the coat down the hall and mercifully out of sight before she lurched forward, nearly losing her balance. Her vision swam, her head split with pain. She had to brace herself on the console to keep from falling over.

The Doctor dropped his facade of irritated dotty uncle and dashed over. He took Peri's shoulders in his strong hands, steadying her as her eyesight swam back into focus.

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah." Peri blinked a few times. "Yeah, I'm okay. Just a bit woozy." She looked over her shoulder and considered the Doctor curiously. "Erm . . . you can let go of me now."

He did so quickly, betraying not a trace of embarrassment. "Good. Now you can help me figure out what the devil's been going on."  
Peri rolled her shoulders, massaging out the cramps, allowing her roaring headache to subside. She suggested offhandedly, "Did something happen to the TARDIS?"

"Does a one-legged duck swim in circles, Peri?" He snapped, "Of course something's happened to the TARDIS! The question remains to be what particular something."

"Were we attacked?"

"In the Time Vortex? Highly unlikely. Our shields haven't registered an energy discharge. And the scanner," he snapped a control to illuminate a complex series of read-outs on the console room scanner, "is not showing any residual artron energy signatures caused by the incursion of another time ship in the immediate area."

"Turbulence?"

"Not nearly powerful enough. A few bumps in the road wouldn't cause a 40% power drain."

"Then perhaps it's just your driving?" Peri suggested sweetly, batting her eyelashes.

The Doctor looked at her from behind his curly fringe. "Don't try to be sarcastic, Peri, it really doesn't suit you."

"And it does suit you, I suppose?"

The Doctor opened his mouth to let out a biting response when wet, heavy footfalls drew both his and Peri's attention to the far entrance of the console room, to the door leading to the rest of the ship, where a very disorientated individual was wiggling his way past the hat stand.

Frobisher gargled giddily, his words slurred, "That was soooooooome party, Doc."

The Doctor arched an eyebrow and huffed, "Decided to show yourself, have you?"

"Some of us thought you'd been sucked into a black hole along with the Doctor's wit and fashion sense," added Peri under her breath. The Doctor heard her anyway, and he glared.

Frobisher, a mesomorphic Whifferdill disguised as a penguin, possessed of a Brooklyn accent and more wisecracks than a Groucho Marx routine, shuffled into the console room and considered Peri and the Doctor. The tension between the two was palpable.

"Did I miss something?"

"The usual thing: the TARDIS broke down and we almost died," Peri told him tersely.

"Oh." Frobisher rested a flipper on the top of his sleek head. "Did the Doc have one of his funny turns again?"

The Doctor wheeled around from his work on the console and bellowed, "Funny turns!? Funny turns!?"

Peri sighed, preparing herself for another childish outburst from the equally childish Time Lord. She hid her head in the palm of her hand.  
The Doctor's cheeks reddened as he fixed Frobisher with an angry blue scowl. "I'll have you know, the TARDIS's impediment has nothing whatsoever to do with me! Furthermore, even in the minuscule chance that the drain was my fault, my impeccable sense of coordination and skill regarding my ship's systems is unparalleled and utterly infallible, and will soon right the situation at hand!"

Peri snorted, "Don't be modest on our accounts!"

Frobisher didn't look convinced. "Be that as it may, Doc, the fact remains that something happened to the TARDIS . . ."

"And we were caught in the wake of it." Peri finished, "Not pleasant."

"Hmm. I'm inclined to agree with you, Miss Brown."

"That's a first."

The Doctor ignored her. "How much of it do you two remember?"

"I remember a lot of light," said Frobisher, and shuddered. "It wasn't nice light, either. It had existence of some sort. It wrapped around my body and very nearly throttled the life out of me. There were hands, reaching into me . . ."

"And rearranging my insides like a first time flat tenant," finished the Doctor, his face pale and his mouth pulled taught into a thin, grim line. "It seems as though we all experienced a massive amount of optical sensory bombardment, an overstimulation of the visual cortexes of our brains. The cone receptors couldn't deal with the spectrum of energy. Therefore, our mind rejected the information. Hence the pain, nausea, and hallucinogenic side effects . . ."  
"What on Earth are you guys talking about? It wasn't like that at all!" protested Peri.

The Doctor's mouth made an "O" as he froze halfway through his scientific jargon. He looked earnestly at Peri as if expecting a good reason for her interrupting him.

"There was light for a split second," she elaborated quickly, "but then I was in a room."

"Room? What room?" asked Frobisher.

"I don't know. I'd never seen it before. It was old, sort of dark, grey, and wet like those dungeons in old horror movies. It was filled with weird electronic equipment and loud machinery that seemed two ticks away from making a really loud bang and blowing the place to smithereens."

Though it sounded silly to Peri's ears, the Doctor was listening intently. "Go on."

She looked uncomfortable, and began to twist the end of her shirt. She finally admitted, after a few moments of unbroken silence, "It wasn't just an empty room. There was a man there, too."

"Who, Peri?" inquired the Time Lord.

She looked pained as a nasty image recreated itself in her mind's eye. "It was horrible. I was hovering, looking in on the room like the helicopter camera crews in nature documentaries. The lone man in the room had suction cup electrodes attached to his temples that were connected to this huge, metal sphere sparking with electricity. He was strapped into what looked like a dentist chair inside the sphere. He had a control box . . . thing . . . in his hand, and every time he pressed a button, he shocked himself."

"Holy haddock," gasped the Whifferdill.

"And he was screaming. I could tell he was trying to fight it, but something was forcing him to electrocute himself over and over and over again. He just wouldn't stop screaming."

"Peri," the Doctor sounded desperate, "this is important. Try to describe the man."

"He was a guy in a dream! I can't . . ."

"Peri, I think all three of us may have experienced some respect of temporal short-out, a wake of chronon energy caused by a major temporal anomaly. They resound from a specific event in history, where a fixed point in time has been tampered with. Usually the only side effects are pain and disorientation, but somehow you were receptive to an actual visual representation of the anomaly at its source! This is urgent! You must try to remember that man. What did he look like? Old, tall, fat, thin . . ."

Peri racked her brain. For some reason, the memory of the man was blurred and detached, and refused to come to complete fruition. "I don't know. Generic, I guess. Pretty tall, dark hair, mustache, blue eyes. Any regular guy. Though his clothes looked a little old fashioned . . ."

"Anything else? Were there any defining physical features whatsoever? A tattoo, an extra finger, a broken nose?"

"Actually," Peri's eyes widened as she gazed past the Doctor, piecing together the parts of a broken mental image, "he had big thumbs. Really big thumbs, almost as long as the rest of his fingers."

"Well, that narrows the playing field down to about three gazillion double-jointed species on this end of the Mutter's Spiral," muttered Frobisher rather unhelpfully.

"No it doesn't! I know precisely who it was Peri saw!" The Doctor sounded anxious, but overexcited at the same time. His hands were those of a jittery coffee drinker's. "Strap yourselves in, you two. We're going for a trip."

"Oh goodie," grumbled Peri.

"Just because Peri saw a Charlie Chaplin look-alike in a dream?" If penguins had brows, Frobisher's would have furrowed. "We'll be reading tarot cards and consulting tea leaves next."

The Doctor waved away the Whifferdill's sarcasm. "One can tell a lot about a place by its people. And the same applies to time. Peri was given a glimpse of the person, rather, the man, at the center of the time distortion of which we were caught in the wake! I don't know how, exactly, but if someone has been meddling with the pre-established course of history, it's our job to track down the problem and fix it."

Frobisher waddled over to the console, trying to read the screens. He asked, "Then where, exactly, are we going? Risa? The Sun-Fused Pleasure Planets of Mierodonius Prime? Jamaica?"

"I wouldn't get your hopes up, Frobisher," Peri glanced at the read-out, and wrinkled her nose, "New York City, 1903."

"The dawn of the new century." The Doctor dictated dramatically, like an overenthusiastic tour guide to the galaxy, "A major period of social, political, and economical change. The United States was just on the brink of getting its footholds in the big bad world."

Peri's brown eyes suddenly widened. "Doctor . . ."

"World War I is about to rear its ugly head . . ."

"Doctor!"

"And the Wright Brothers invented the airplane!"

"DOCTOR!" shrieked Peri.

"WHAT?" he asked in exasperation.

"The man said something. I just remembered; right before I woke up, the guy in the chair said something to me!"

"Peri, you were a disembodied consciousness witnessing the visual feedback of a time distortion. You weren't actually there, and there's no way the man could have been aware of your presence. You're imagining things."

"But he did! He looked right at me! He stopped screaming for just a split second, and he told me . . . he told me . . ."

"What, Peri?" asked Frobisher, curious despite himself.

"It didn't make much sense, but he told me . . . _Oh, Siren of Time, I was not merely beholding a vision, but had caught sight of a great and profound truth. And now it will be the doom of us all, carried on the wind of your wings._"


	3. Chapter 2: The Edge Of A Paradox

_"To me, the universe is simply a great machine which never came into being and never will end. The human being is no exception to the natural order. Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without."_

_— Nikola Tesla,__ Liberty, February, 1935 —_

* * *

"Nikola Tesla. The man you saw, Peri, was Nikola Tesla. Somehow, someway, it's him who's tied up in all this. Though I can't for the life of me imagine how . . . or why, for that matter."

The Doctor kept his hands fixed on the console and his gaze plastered to the viewscreen as he brought the TARDIS in to land. The rise and fall of the central time rotor began to slow; the sounds of dematerialization were beginning to echo from deep within the heart of the time ship, trumpeting their arrival to whomever cared to listen.

"Didn't he work for Thomas Edison or something?"

Peri, in preparedness for their excursion to the early 20th Century, had changed into the standard period dress: an unfussy, tidy assortment of shirtwaist, ankle-length skirt, and high-collared tweed jacket. A black automobile bonnet hid all but the fringes of her short brown hair. The shirtwaist was ridiculously tight; Peri had spent the better part of ten minutes squeezing herself into the wretched thing. It was like being dressed in a roll of cellophane wrap! The skirt kept catching on the backs of her shoes, and Peri Brown was clumsy enough as it was without her garb tripping her up further.

The Doctor answered her question, oblivious to her wardrobe plight.

"For a relatively short period of time, yes," he agreed. "The two men had the potential to move mountains, to change the world. Edison's charisma, intelligence, and potent awareness of the workings of finance along with Tesla's untapped genius for machinery were a lethal combination in the new age of electricity dependence. Given time and money, which was aplenty in the Edison Machine Works, nothing could stand in their way. If only . . ." He sighed, a melancholy light in his eyes.

"What happened?" asked Peri while surreptitiously unbuttoning the top of the shirtwaist.

"Let's just say they had their conflicting viewpoints," said the Doctor. "They couldn't find it within themselves to set aside their differences and work together. Both were so stubbornly insistent on their own ideas concerning power generation that they were unable to compromise . . . on anything."

"Smart, stubborn guys with larger-than-life superiority complexes . . . now who does that remind me of?"

"Me, I should think."

Both Peri and the Doctor turned their heads. And their jaws promptly dropped.

Standing in the doorway of the control room was a tall, lanky young man with a mop of sandy blond hair falling into a fringe over his pleasant, open features. His eyes were a bright cornflower blue, wide and hopeful to the point of betraying an air of naivety and childishness. A steely glint in his irises, like lightning in a snowstorm, was the only indication of deeper, darker forces boiling beneath his boyish exterior. He, like Peri, was dressed in the tweed accoutrements of the 1900s: he wore a deep blue waistcoat over his wing-collared shirt, along with a matching pair of grey trousers and grey frock coat. A dark Homburg hat sat crookedly on the top of his flaxen hair.

He wasn't wearing a celery stalk or his red-banned hat, nor his cream cricketing sweater and striped trousers, which was why, for a split second, Peri didn't recognize him.

"It's you," she murmured incredulously.

The Doctor was far less impressed. His right cheek twitched as he exclaimed, "_Frobisher! _No no no no, absolutely not!"

Frobisher, who had swapped his penguin form for the body of the fifth Doctor, pouted.

"Why not?" The Brooklyn accent sat poorly on his new tongue. "I can hardly be expected to go waltzing around New York City disguised as a penguin, now can I? Besides, I've disguised myself as you before. Remember when I was investigating Alicia Mulholland's fiancé, Arthur Gringax? Worked like a veritable charm."

Peri gave a start. Frobisher, though retaining that indomitable Brooklyn vernacular, was speaking with the fifth Doctor's voice. The voice of her Doctor. It brought back painful memories of people she had not thought about in a very long time, though she was not usually one for reminiscing. She recalled things and people she would have much rather left buried in the back of her mind, people like Howard and Kamelion and the Master. It brought back memories of planets dotted with caves and carpeted in sand, stretching as far as the eye could see. It brought back memories of a lascivious, distorted man in a mask, of poison coursing through her body and shredding her nervous system apart.

And it brought back memories of a sacrifice. She remembered the young Doctor dying, surrendering the last of the bat's milk to save her life, while forsaking his own.

The Doctor and Frobisher's argument faded into background noise, and Peri was left alone with her thoughts. And in a moment of profound awareness, she began to realize just how much had changed since that fateful day on Androzani Minor. So much had happened, and the new Doctor had become so much a part of her life that Peri barely remembered the first few hours of their acquaintance on Sarn.

But Frobisher's latest guise got her to thinking about the differences between the Doctor's current self and his last self. It was a thing she swore she would never do, because it worked only to make her upset and regretful. But she could not help but wonder: would the Doctor, in his sixth body, ever dream of being as selfless, as noble, as his predecessor? If his companion's life were poised on the brink of destruction, would he be capable of such an act as utter and complete self sacrifice?

Peri, in all honesty, didn't know the answer.

"There are billions of people you could disguise yourself as, billions of possibilities," said the Doctor, his booming voice wrenching her back to the present. "Why on earth would you choose that one?"

"Why can't he look like you?" countered Peri, touching upon a remarkably defensive streak. "I liked your former self. He was sweet, and he was a hell of a lot more pleasant to hang around than you."

Peri struck a bitter chord. The Doctor sneered, his features dark, "So you've said. Like it or not, young lady, I'm me, and I have been for quite some time. I really don't want to spend the next 24 hours talking to a shadow of a former version of myself, a person whom I'd much rather leave stowed away in the backwaters of my subconscious, if it's all the same. Besides, if we are here in New York to prevent the occurrence of a time paradox, the last thing we need to do is flaunt a mockery of one!"

"Oh, come on, Doc! Can I keep him?" pleaded Frobisher. "He's a heck of a lot less conspicuous than a man-sized penguin."

Peri noted, "Or a man-sized Time Lord strutting his stuff in Joseph's Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat."

"I'm as inconspicuous as the next man!"

Frobisher coughed into his sleeve, "If the next man were Oscar Wilde in a drag. Singing falsetto."

"That wasn't so far from what actually occurred on a daily basis with old Oscar . . . and don't push your luck," warned the Doctor. "You can keep that . . . body . . . on one condition: you are still Frobisher. If we both start addressing ourselves as "Doctor", every alarm system in Gallifrey will most likely go off, and we'll bring Vansell's entire Celestial Intervention Agency down upon our heads."

"Great, it's all settled!" Peri's own excitement surprised her. "And right on time, too; the TARDIS is coming in to land."

As if on que, the grating, elephantine wheezing of the time ship's dematerialization sequence ended with a loud bump, and the TARDIS's interior ambience quieted to a bone-thrumming hum. The scanner activated, revealing the landscape of the past.

The TARDIS crew saw a city. A few yards from where they had materialized, the body of a vast river meandered in front of a concrete shore, its buildings standing tall like a parade of soldiers at attention. The sun was beginning to set behind the largest edifice, casting a golden beam of light across the polarized glass paneling. The fading light set the city ablaze and illuminated the river. The surface of the water shimmered with oily rainbow colors. The vista looked exactly like a vintage postcard Peri had found within one of her National Geographic magazines. The cityscape was so picturesquely beautiful that it took a while for an unsettling thought to sink in . . .

That particular National Geographic magazine had focused on the Port Authority's decision to begin construction of the World Trade Center in the Battery section of Manhattan . . . in 1961!

"Doctor, you messed up again," she huffed, "this isn't 1903!"

The Doctor looked a mite concerned, but didn't want to admit his mistake. "What makes you say that? I focused the TARDIS on the epicenter of the time distortion, which was emanating from the year 1903!"

As if to prove her point, the scanner showed a brand spanking new Chevy Corvair go gliding past on the road. Peri threw up her hands. "This is the 1960s! And here I am dressed in something that would have made Carrie Chapman Catt sick to her stomach. Give me a beehive any day over this stuff!"

The Doctor arched an eyebrow at the mental image of Peri in a cocktail dress and feather boa. "I thought you looked rather comely in what you're wearing, actually. It suits you more than whatever atrocious get-up you usually frequent."

Peri laughed icily, "You're one to talk! Besides, I didn't think you noticed. Or cared."

"I notice _everything_, Peri. Though I have to admit," the Doctor said grudgingly, switching subjects quickly, "the buildings of the New York skyline do look just a tad too tall for 1903. Oh well . . . we'll just reel our lines back in and try again. There's nothing particularly the matter with the 1960s, other than the obvious: segregation, drugs, assassination of King and Kennedy, Barry Manilow . . . but this normality is a good sign that the time anomaly is a fairly contained phenomena. Nothing looks out of place."

"Not so it would seem, Doc," Frobisher informed him. His face was cloudy and grim. "Look at the controls. I think we are in the right time. Not 1903, but awfully close."

"Impossible," blustered the Doctor. He bounded from the scanner to the far side of the control console, but as he read the print-out of temporal data, his face paled to an alarming shade of pasty grey, accented by nervous pearls of sweat. His pupils narrowed as if he had walked into an abnormally bright room.

"Impossible. This is impossible . . ." He continued to mutter to himself, though each time he uttered the word, he seemed less sure of his conviction.  
Peri dared to ask, "What's wrong this time?"

"This." The Doctor jabbed a bony index finger at the control console. Peri took it as her cue to have a look and, leaning her head beside the Doctor's, she read the scanner index with ever increasing alarm.

"Oh my God," she gasped. "This is . . . this is . . ."

"Impossible?" The Doctor sighed hollowly, "If I have to use that word more than five times in less than five minutes I start to become worried."

"So you should be, Doc!" squeaked Frobisher. The fifth Doctor's voice always did get uncommonly shrill when his dander was up. "We're sitting on the edge of a paradox!"

The Doctor agreed, "We overshot the year 1903, but not as much as the landscape made me think. The year is only 1910! The date is the 25th of June, the tenth year of the 20th Century!" The Doctor could feel his stomach getting queasy, just like during the preternatural, painful aftershocks that had overwhelmed the TARDIS crew in the wake of the original time distortion.

Frobisher brushed his blond hair out of his face. "Oh boy. This is bad to the outer extremities of bad."

The Time Lord explained, "Somehow, the time distortion, the anomaly the three of us experienced in the Vortex, has managed to rewrite history. Somehow, the scientific and technological advances made in the early half of the 20th Century have been accelerated in such a way as to make the mechanics of the 1960s the norm during the 1910s! The Earth has jumped forward 50 years in development!"

"Jesus." Peri was beginning to realize the implications. "So that means stuff like the Manhattan Project, ENIAC, the Ford Model-T . . ."

"Have all been invented, discovered, utilized, and improved upon at least half a dozen times already," finished the Doctor. "The early to mid 20th Century of Earth's history was an indubitable powerhouse of industry and scientific discovery. Just think: in less than 50 years, humankind went from hurtling what was little more than a paper airplane into the air at Kitty Hawk to launching manned probes into space! The speed of the advances made in technology border on the magical! Moore's Law states that over the history of computing hardware, the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles approximately every two years, represented by 2 to the x power, an exponential relationship. Humans took this notion to the absolute extreme!"

Frobisher caught on. "So what you're saying is, if humans had been able to do all that stuff another 50 years earlier, get all the groundwork laid down and out of the way, before the great technological push of the 1950s and '60s . . ."

"Then, theoretically, the human race would be catapulted into a new age of science, mechanics, and cybernetics never before imagined even by the likes of Clarke, Orwell, and Roddenberry," affirmed the Doctor, his voice level and deadly serious. "Forget 2001. The space odyssey's bound to happen in 1951, with their own versions of HAL to boot! The atomic bomb, going by this timeline, would have been field tested in the 1890s, quantum mechanics mapped out and legible by the 1970s . . . interstellar and space-warp travel perfected and utilized by the beginning of the new millennium at the latest! The list goes on and on, and the consequences are too ghastly to contemplate!"

"What can we do, Doctor?" Peri asked desperately, unable to comprehend the entire course of human history unraveling like a ball of string before her very eyes . . .

"Nikola Tesla," stated the Doctor with iron poise. "I need to be sure. Describe the man you saw in that vision again, Peri."

"Tall, pale, dark hair and mustache, weirdly long and spindly thumbs . . . and surrounded by equipment which he was using to electrocute himself."

He nodded. "Definitely Tesla. His likeness appeared in the aftershock images caused by the first wakes of temporal consequence rippling through the Time Vortex and hitting our TARDIS. He is at the center of the time distortion. Whatever happened during the course of history to make the Earth in the 1910s appear like the Earth in the 1960s focuses on the actions of Nikola Tesla leading up to the original cataclysm. We have to go back further. We have to stop whomever's been meddling from . . . well . . . meddling!"

"But Doctor," Peri pointed out, even more apprehensive than before, "remember what the man—Tesla—said to me in that vision."  
"If you're even sure you did hear him say something, but never mind."

She ignored him. "He said, 'Oh, Siren of Time, I was not merely beholding a vision, but had caught sight of a great and profound truth. And now it will be the doom of us all, carried on the wind of your wings'. Sounds like a pretty grim prophecy to me!"

"I don't believe in prophecy."

"Oh, for crying out loud, you know what I mean! What about if our own trip back in time causes the original problem? What about if Tesla was trying to warn us against our own meddling, stop us from making our original mistake? What's to stop us from going back to the _real_ 1903, changing the course of history for our past selves to find, and then they go back again to solve the problem which their future selves, us, created in the first place . . . we'd just be getting ourselves caught in a never-ending time loop!"

"She does have a point, Doctor. It's a predestination paradox. We would create the original problem," Frobisher said, "There's no real way for us to know if we're doing the right thing. And if we're not doing the right thing, we could make a right dog's breakfast of Earth's history."

"I like to think that my hearts are in the right place, Peri, Frobisher," said the Doctor, "and they're telling me that something or someone, not us, has fiddled about with Tesla's timeline, and with it, the timeline of the entire Earth! You remember what I said, Peri? Tesla had the potential to change the world! What if someone else has decided to make him do just that!"

"So we are going back?"

"Yes!" The Doctor cranked down a lever, and the entire TARDIS soon trumpeted with the sound of dematerialization. The blue form of the London police box on the shores of the Hudson River faded until it was but a breath of air and the distant echo of grating machinery weaving its way through the trees.  
"We are going back to the early 20th Century! Back to the beginning of this temporal fiasco!"

"And where is that, exactly?" inquired Peri.

The Doctor answered cryptically, "Wardenclyffe."

"Who?"

"_Where_. Wardenclyffe Laboratories, Miss Brown, in Shoreham, Long Island. To the birth of an art of which I am a master."

She wracked her brains for a minute. "Clown impersonations? Shouting really loud? Soufflé making?"

"Time travel, Peri! Time travel!" he barked in exasperation.

"But time travel was never invented by humans! That's obvious!"

"A common misconception. Time travel was in fact invented in 1895, accidentally, by none other than Nikola Tesla himself. The difference was, nobody was supposed to know about it. And now, it seems, the Wardenclyffe Experiments have become a part of established history!"


	4. Chapter 3: Tête-à-Tête

_"I have been feeding pigeons, thousands of them for years. But there was one, a beautiful bird, pure white with light grey tips on its wings; that one was different. It was a female. I had only to wish and call her and she would come flying to me.  
I loved that pigeon as a man loves a women, and she loved me. As long as I had her, there was a purpose to my life."_

___— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

_Hello? Hello! Is anybody there? Please, dear God, let someone be there!_

What's going on? Who is this? How the hell . . .? Are you in my head!?

_Oh, thank God. You have to help me! Please, do not fight or attempt to block out my voice. I am not mad, I am not deranged. You must hear me out._

Look, whoever you are, I don't even know what's going on here! Where am I? How are you talking to me like this?

_Believe me when I say I do not know. I have no idea what is happening to me. I close my eyes, and it is as if all of creation exists at once before dreaming self. I am bearing witness to thousands of moments in space and time warping together, and I am unable to distinguish myself from the millions of other people talking inside my head. You are the only person who has answered my call._

Is this you again? The guy in the room? The guy with all the electronic equipment and the long thumbs?

_You saw me at Wardenclyffe? You are the Angel to whom I spoke?_

Uh . . . ooooookay. Yeah, sure.  
_  
You are the beautiful face that appeared to me at my moment of greatest anguish. I gave you a warning. Have you headed that warning, Angel?_

You're Nikola Tesla, aren't you?  
_  
You profess to know me, Angel._

Look, my name's Perpugilliam Brown. Peri to my friends.

_And am I a friend, Miss Brown?_

An enemy of my enemy is my friend, I guess. If the two of us are going to fight this wrinkle in time, then we're bound to be on the same team. We're coming to help you, Mr. Tesla!

_NO! That's what he wants Miss Brown. With this new method of communication I have been privy to glimpses of the Earth Eternal, to the delicate strands of interstitial existence woven through time. I know words which I cannot understand, scientific ideas that set my head ablaze. What is this "Web of Time," or this "Time Vortex?" Why do I see the past, present, and future all at once inside my mind? As well as the random miscellaneous I see your own self, Miss Brown, tangled inexorably within these threads of time. If you come to Wardenclyffe, you shall surely perish, along with the rest of Time Immemorial!_

But we've already seen what will happen! Where we come from, the Earth has been completely changed, history has been rewritten, and whatever or whomever is responsible has something to do with you! We're trying to prevent what's going to happen, the Doctor and I.

_A Doctor? A physician travels with you, Peri Brown?_

Sort of. You could call him a Time Physician. It's his job to fix stuff like this. Don't worry, he'll set it right.

**_Well well well. Is that my old acquaintance, Miss Brown, having a little tête-à-tête with my good friend Nikola Tesla? I had not anticipated the Doctor's involvement quite so soon_**_ . . . Peri! He is here! You have to break the connection before he finds you! Run! Please, go!_

Before who finds me? Mr. Tesla? Who was that other voice? What's going on? I have this pain in my head, as if the space between my ears is on fire . . .

_Run! Do not come to Wardenclyffe Tower. Heed my warning, Siren of Time. Do not . . . _**_I will teach you the folly of attempting to interfere with my plans, Miss Brown. It seems as though you did not entirely learn your lesson before, the last time our paths crossed. Still so sanctimonious. Still so naive. Still so easy to break . . ._**

Who the hell are you!? What have you done with Nikola Tesla!?

**_Mr. Tesla's insubordination is being dealt with as I see fit. Everything else you will learn in good time, my dear. It seems as though you and the Doctor are to be my welcome guests here at Wardenclyffe Tower. Everything will be made clear to you there, before I use that human puppet Tesla to decimate the entire causal nexus of time and space!_**

Oh my God . . . it's YOU! You're the one who caused the time distortion! You've messed up Nikola Tesla's timeline! I swear to God, when the Doctor finds out, when I tell him . . .

**_That is the beauty of the situation at hand, Miss Brown. You are not quite capable of telling anyone much of anything at the moment._**

What are you talking about?

**_As we speak, mere microseconds are passing in the waking world. You are laying unconscious in the Doctor's arms. When Tesla made the connection, when he sent out that minuscule ripple of time distortion, your every molecule was inundated with chronon energy and you collapsed. Your body is but a corpse, only your mind is working. And it is in my hands, now._**

I am within you. I can see every facet of your thoughts, every nook and cranny of that pathetic little human psyche. I can pluck and pull whatever strings I see fit in the instrument of your memories. I could make you brain dead. I could make you kill the Doctor and all of your friends. I could make you sadistic, evil, and abominated like your dear Sharaz Jek on Androzani Minor . . .

GET OUT! Get out of my head!

**_But where's the fun in that, I wonder? I wouldn't get to see your face, Miss Brown. Yes, I could feel the fiery terror of your thoughts, but that pales in comparison to the raw anguish of self-expression. One misses the little details, the small moments before the end where a person shows their true colors. And I wouldn't get to see the Doctor's face either, the horror that blooms across his features when he finds his dear companion comatose like a vegetable. So I will opt, instead, to simply erase the memory of this conversation ever occurring. My vengeance will come in its due time._**

We WILL stop you. Enjoy your little hoorah now, because a storm is coming! The Doctor will stop you, just like he always does! You will never win.

**_If that helps you sleep at night, Miss Brown, then believe it. But remember that I now have access to your mind through Tesla. I will always be on the fringes of your nightmares. You will come to me, despite Tesla's plea to the contrary. And when you do . . . when you do . . . that's when the fun really begins. Until next time, Perpugilliam Brown. Do not dare try to cross me again._**

* * *

"Is she all right, Doc?" Frobisher asked worriedly. His once elegant fingernails had been worn down to the quick.

"I don't know." The Doctor's words sounded very strained. "She was fine a moment ago! Snarky as ever, completely at ease. I was talking to her in the console room, and the next moment she just collapsed, head over heals, right to the floor like a sack of potatoes."

"I'm sure she'd really appreciate that description. So . . . what do you think happened?"

"It may have something to do with our current predicament, Frobisher. It can't be simple coincidence. Somehow, Peri is more affected by what's been happening to us than either you or me. Which is strange, considering my own personal affinity with time. If anyone was going to be particularly sensitive to a temporal anomaly, I would have thought it'd be me. It's actually rather insulting!"

"Well, sorry to have to rain in on your self-pity parade, Doctor, but is Peri . . .?"

"No," he said firmly, brooking no argument. "She is going to be all right. I've tucked her into the TARDIS sickbay. She should come around on her own accord."

Frobisher still looked worried. His voice was bordering on frantic, his affection for Peri coming to the surface. "Isn't there something you can give her? I mean, her heart wasn't beating at all!"

"Frobisher!"

"She was very cold to the touch, too."

"_Frobisher!_" hissed the Doctor through clenched teeth. "I have to go on believing that whatever has affected Peri has no long-term side effects, because if I don't, and her life is in fact forfeit, I would never be able to forgive myself. I didn't say this to her at the time because I didn't want to frighten her, but the fact that she has been receiving direct communiqués from the Vortex is a very disturbing development. Whomever's responsible is choosing to ignore the lighter pickings, you or me, and is using his power to shove telepathic signals into a weak human brain. He is specifically targeting Peri.

"I don't really know what's going on, Frobisher, and if Peri is in danger because of my ignorance, then her life is my responsibility. I will do everything in my power to make sure she recovers."

"Oh, Doctor, I didn't know you cared!"

The Doctor whipped around. Sitting up in one of the sickbay beds was Peri, looking absolutely fine. She even had a cheeky grin plastered across her face: she had been listening in on the Doctor and Frobisher's conversation for the past minute.

"Of course I care." The Doctor muttered gruffly, "You seemed to have suffered another chronon bombardment. I was worried about you."

"We both were," Frobisher piped in. His face was flushed with relief, but he couldn't help but ask, "Did you see Tesla again?"

She nodded. "Very briefly. He was crying out for help this time. He seemed most adamant about it, in fact, like he really wanted someone to hear him, and he didn't really care who it was."

"Nothing else?" The Doctor took a seat on the edge of her bed. He scrutinized her face, looking for any traces of deceit. "That seems rather convenient, considering his earlier peddlings of doom and gloom."

Peri met his stare dead on. "That's what I heard, Doctor. Why . . . do you think I'm lying?"

_Not you, Peri. But I suspect someone is trying very hard to smother any communication you have with Tesla. The question remains to be . . . who . . . and why?  
_  
"It's nothing to worry about," the Doctor assured her, the glimmer of a smile playing across his lips. "I'm just being paranoid."

"That's what I like to hear, Doctor." Peri scooted her rear out of bed and swung her legs over the side. She slipped her feet back into her Canadian black leather boots. "Are we still on course for Wardenclyffe, 1903, then?"

The Doctor nodded as he stood up. "Yes. We should be arriving very soon, if not immediately."

He grinned when the entire interior of the TARDIS began to roar with the cheese-grater ear-assault that was the sound of the ship's landing. The three companions stood in silence as the TARDIS completed the dematerialization sequence, shuddering to a halt with a jolt that caused Peri and Frobisher to stumble. The Doctor, however, looked as smug and unruffled as ever. Coat, cat pin, and all.

"Welcome to Long Island, you two." He could have been the ring leader of a circus with all of his bravado. "Welcome to Wardenclyffe."

* * *

"Well, it's New York at any rate." Frobisher tried to cheer everyone up. It didn't work.

The three members of the TARDIS crew stood under an overhang on a filthy, dark city street. The avenue was lined with carts of rotten, moldy fruit and vegetables, covered in frost, that their sellers had long-since abandoned to the winter rain and the cold. A biting wind whipped between the tall buildings and ruffled their hair. Peri and Frobisher had to keep their hands firmly planted on the brims of their hats to keep them from blowing away. The entire area reeked of sewage and dead things. Everything from laundry to furniture to despondent, hollow-faced people hung out of windows and doorways, overflowing onto the sidewalks like a swollen river breaking its banks. The New York tenement reformers Jacob Riis and Lillian Wald were only just beginning to fight a tough battle to get the New York State Legislature to create the Tenement House Commission. The effects of their efforts had yet to be felt in neighborhoods like the one the Doctor, Peri, and Frobisher found themselves in.

"Drat." The Doctor folded his arms and huffed, "The TARDIS appears to have landed us in the right time but not the right place."

"What else is new?" admonished Peri, who glanced uneasily down the silty street. "We're not far off, though: New York City. But of course the TARDIS couldn't have dropped us off on 5th Avenue or something."

Frobisher shared Peri's wariness. "I have to admit, the area does look a little dodgy. Luckily for me, with my charm and clear, New York-ian dialect, we shouldn't have too much of a problem."

"Too much of a problem?" the Doctor repeated incredulously. "Frobisher, Shoreham is more than 50 miles from here . . . on Long Island. The TARDIS can't make those kinds of short hops with a temporal distortion playing havoc with her systems, so how on Earth are we ever going to get to Wardenclyffe? Fly?"

"Uh, guys." Peri tugged on the Doctor's sleeve cuff and squeaked, "I think we have company."

Lurching down the street towards them, clothed in attire caked in soot and unwashed grim, was a middle-aged man. His sallow features were partially hidden by the scraggly remnants of a beard and his eyes were red and watery from drink. The smell of cheap gin radiated off him like a fog, stinging their throats. Peri had to stop herself from gagging. Sure, she had had a few drinks before, perhaps on more occasions than was good for her, but she couldn't fathom drinking as much as this guy probably had! He reeked.

"Good evening to ya, lords and lady. Nice people like you'selves not usually 'round here. Not too flashy down here, you ain't." The man slurred, "Beauty of a night, ain't it?"

"Charming," Peri agreed a little too hurriedly. The Doctor jabbed a bony elbow in her side.

"You let women speak for ya, then?"

Peri's nostrils flared like she was going to breath fire. "What in he—"

The Doctor stepped on her foot, silencing her very quickly. The look Peri shot him could have curdled new milk.

"Hey, who died and made YOU boss? Don't fuss Peri here. Did you see that attitude you got from her? She really thinks who she is, that one. Not for nuttin' but, we had a real wallear to visit the Downtown." Frobisher regressed entirely into his colloquial Brooklyn dialogue. "I axeya, whatsamattadat?"

"Frobisher, what are you doing?" murmured the Doctor from the corner of his mouth.

"Playing the part," he whispered hoarsely. "You know: walk the walk, talk the talk."

The man's livid red eyes and flushed face burned. "You from Brooklyn?"

"That's right."

"Well, SIR, this is Upper Manhattan! We've got no place for rich scum like you!"

"Uh oh," gulped Frobisher.

The man, much to the TARDIS crew's dismay, drew a switchblade from his ratty pee-coat pocket. He advanced on them, brandishing the weapon drunkenly.  
The Doctor, Frobisher, and Peri had been slowly but inexorably backed up against the solid brick wall of the building behind them. Their shoes were soaked from the black snow pooling around their feet. The TARDIS was at least half a block away, and groups of people were beginning to leave their homes to watch the ruckus. Considering the state of their emaciated faces and raggedy clothes, contrasting with the well-groomed attire of the TARIDS crew, the Doctor was not expecting anyone to come to their aid anytime soon.

Peri asked weakly, "You guys ever hear that saying, 'Retreat is the better part of valor'?"

"Oh, buck up, Peri." The Doctor gestured to their assailant. "There's one of him, and three of us. We can manage."

"Ahem." Frobisher tipped his head to his right, towards the direction of the grotty tavern their friend must have first stumbled out of. A larger group of drunken men had heard the commotion and, spotting the three well-dressed people backed onto a stoop, were wanting to get in on the fun. The entire rabble was armed with everything from small butter knives to the legs of barstools to empty beer bottles.

"Oh, well . . . heh heh heh." The Doctor laughed nervously, and began to wring his hands. "What was that you were saying, Peri?"

"Run?"

"Run!"

The three figures bolted, Peri dashing down the street with Frobisher right on her heels, and the Doctor barreling in the opposite direction towards the rank stench of the Hudson River. He didn't have time to consider the danger of them getting separated, not with a dozen or so angry, drunk New Yorkers hot on his coattails.

"Why does this always happen to me? Every time . . ." gasped the Doctor as he sprinted further into the manky darkness of Upper Manhattan, until he was lost in the fog.

* * *

Not too far away, a man named Martin Cooper stood enveloped in the shadows, considering his targets. He had a keen, unimpeded gaze that tracked his hits like an anthropomorphic bird of prey, catching their every muscle movement, every flutter of fabric, every intake of breath. He saw a man and a young woman, running from the latest lot of drunken hooligans charging down the middle of the street like the beasts of the Pamplona bull runs. Cooper found the general masses disgusting, but a necessary association in his line of work.

He flicked the screen of his com-watch—a bleeping, short-range message transmitter not of the current century. He inputed the correct wavelength codes, and waited quietly and patiently for his response.

_"Yes?"  
_  
Cooper relayed stoically, "I have two matches."

_"Describe them. Quickly."_

"The man is tall and athletic. Long, blond hair and blue eyes. The girl is brunette, smaller but retained of certain aesthetic qualities some would consider attractive. They are holding hands while running."

A grunt. _"That's them. Bring them in immediately, Cooper. Do not fail me."  
_  
"I obey."

Cooper drew his faithful Colt Peacemaker, and set off after Frobisher and Peri.


	5. Chapter 4: Hudson Night

_"That is the trouble with many inventors; they lack patience. They lack the willingness to work a thing out slowly and clearly and sharply in their mind, so that they can actually 'feel it work.' They want to try their first idea right off; and the result is they use up lots of money and lots of good material, only to find eventually that they are working in the wrong direction. We all make mistakes, and it is better to make them before we begin."_

_— Nikola Tesla_, _New York Times_, _March 31, 1895__ —_

* * *

The Doctor ran as fast as he could, further and further into the smoggy shadows of New York's underbelly. He trundled past sooty men and women leaving work for the night, who looked at him indignantly as he pushed past. The Doctor's flight was fueled by fear of the raucous rabble close behind him. Before very long, as he distanced himself more and more from his pursuers, a pungent odor began assault his senses, wafting into his nostrils and making his entire respiratory system sting. He could almost see the smell; it permeated the dank air like a noxious green vapor. The Doctor detected the sharp tang of salt and brine blended with the reeking effluvium of dead fish, rotting meat, and feces. It was enough to twist his gag reflex into knots.

The Doctor stopped dead in his tracks, the smell was so foul. Fortunately for him, his Time Lord respiratory bypass system was quick to filter in as much fresh air as it could from the poisonous elixir of smog, soot, and putrefaction. The small respite from the atmosphere surged the Doctor onward, and before long, the sounds of pursuit began to fade into silence. Whether out of sheer boredom or their inability to handle the smell, the drunken fox hunt petered out and died altogether. The Doctor found himself trotting through the streets of Upper Manhattan alone in the dark, with nought but the smell, the shadows, and the cawing of hungry gulls for company.

The Doctor rounded the curved corner of an old dock house, and stopped when he reached a massive expanse of river. The water was muddy green and murky underneath a thin sheen of ice, sluggishly chugging along its banks like molasses in a drip tube. A far shoreline was just discernible through the predawn darkness. A platoon of oil lanterns guided the night faring boats to the craggy riverbanks of New Jersey looming out of the inky gloom.

"Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour, and is not reminded of the flux of all things?" the Doctor quoted, gazing forlornly across the polluted crests of the Hudson River. "Good ol' Emerson. Never could get the poetic streak out of him."

The Doctor turned his curly blond head to look down the muddy shoreline. Through the mist, the lights of Lower Manhattan could be seen. They reared out of the darkness like the glowing orbs of some abominable sea monster, emerging from the dark depths of the Hudson to stare down at the colorful speck of the Doctor in the monochromatic void.

He shook his head, driving the image away, and glanced in the other direction, towards the west. The George Washington Bridge wasn't due to be built for another forty years or so. The steep, mountainous cliffs on both the New York and New Jersey sides of the river looked remarkably stark without the cartage of rush hour traffic. Instead of expensive condominiums and packed toll booths, the Hudson was lined with row upon row of black factories, which belched greasy clouds into the night air and leaked oily resin into the already choked river.

"Humans," he muttered darkly to himself, his voice muffled by the winter fog. "They care even less for their planet than they do for each other."

The river mud began to ooze into his best red and green spats, until his toes were squishing in the foul sludge. The Doctor cursed and jumped up onto an old loading dock to escape river's cold, slimy fingers. The wooden supports groaned in protest, but somehow managed to hold his generous weight.

Sighing at the state of his ruined shoes, he admitted, "I should probably start looking for Peri and Frobisher. Rassilon alone knows how much trouble they've gotten themselves into by now . . ."

The Doctor jumped off the dock, squelched back into the mud, and began to make his way along the shoreline. He walked parallel to the deep, forbidding mass of the Hudson. He had no desire to venture back into the labyrinthian city streets, especially not at night. There was no telling what manner of characters would show themselves during the early morning hours.

New York City, a hub of commerce, art, industry, wealth, and power the world over, was as silent as the grave as the Doctor trudged towards the lights of Lower Manhattan. No shouting burst out from the glassless windows of the tenements. No clopping of hoofs or squeaky carriage wheels thudded against the paved streets. The waves of the Hudson lapped quietly and unobtrusively against the silty, ice-encrusted sand. Even the squawking gulls had gone quiet. The dark twilight was absolute.

The Doctor found himself jamming his fists into his striped trouser pockets and whistling a tune from an old Venusian aria, a favorite of his third incarnation. The music was forced, and did little to relieve the heavy silence. Before long, the Doctor gave up. He did not have the tracheal surface area, nor enough lungs, to hold a Venusian cantata anyway.

In the muffled, toxic gloom, it did not take the Doctor long to realize someone was following him.

It was nothing more than a ghosting impression on the edge of his vision. The phantasmic figure was playing with him, mocking him, jumping clear out of view before the Doctor could place its location. It skittered back and forth across the sand some hundred meters behind him. It disappeared in the blink of an eye, finding a hiding spot every time the Doctor whirled his head. As he returned his vision to the lights of the city, the Doctor heard the unmistakable squish of wet mud, the crunch of river pebbles and ice under the hardened soles of weatherworn shoes.

Without turning his head, the Doctor bellowed, "I know you're there! How about you show yourself like any self-respecting criminal, hmm? Where's your backbone, man? Scared?"

There was a grunt of displeasure from some ways behind him, and the Doctor heard a sonorous male voice sniff in contempt.

"You are not one to talk about remaining inconspicuous, my friend." The man sounded stuffy, as if he had a chest cold. "I've seen less lurid attire on street harlots."

"Bright colors stand out in the dark. Which is more than what I can say for you, stalking unsuspecting strangers and scaring the living daylights out of them for sport," retorted the Doctor. "Why are you following me?"

A figure melted out of the sickly green fog. He was built like a jumble of pipe cleaners—all spindly arms and legs and a very scrawny torso. A pitch black Homburg hat flattened his close-cropped red hair. His eyes were an icy blue, but appeared almost colorless in the low light.

The Doctor gave a surprised start. For the briefest of moments, he thought he was looking at the spitting image of Vislor Turlough.

But the voice was too deep, the face too old. The man had a permanently half-cocked eyebrow, portraying a bemused exterior that shattered the illusion of the Doctor's sour Trion traveling companion.

"You've been drawing attention to yourself, sir," stated the man. He had a strong Brooklyn accent and a husky undertone that the Doctor realized did not come from a bronchial infection; judging by the web of wrinkles lining his face and the nicotine stains on his fingers, the chap smoked too much.

"Who are you?"

"That's not important." The line was so cliché, the Doctor almost burst into laughter. But it was a cliché he had neither the time nor the patience for . . .

"Let me tell you for you, then." The Time Lord put his hands on his hips, and sneered, "Judging by the attire, the used and abused pack of grimy cigarettes in your left hand pocket, which are no doubt soaking wet by now, and the shifty way you carry yourself, you're a self-hired private eye, one of many trying to make a living in this sooty dump of a city and barely a smidgen more successful than the Hudson factory workers. Oh, you talk a good talk and walk a good walk. You've got the Homburg hat and the deep voice and the menacing, shadowy physiognomy. Unfortunately, that's about all you've got. You're a sham, a poor excuse for a film noir Defective Detective. And then I come along, a suspicious stranger, and you think you've stumbled across the last cookie in the proverbial jar and are hoping to incriminate me for some petty felony about which I know nothing and reap the rewards. If I'm wrong, I'm a Dalek."

The man did not answer right away, but the irritated tic of his brick-red eyebrows told the Doctor he was right on at least one account.

"You're sharper than you look, stranger. And crueler," he admitted, his thin-lipped mouth twisting into a stolid scowl. "I'll confess: I saw the motley coat and took you for a fool. You've proved me wrong, and I like a man with a little nerve. Though I must correct you on one account . . . I have no intention of taking you anywhere."

"Pleased to hear it. You would have found me a difficult prize."

"You from England?"

The Doctor considered his response. He avoided the awkward answer, and coined a phrase Turlough had once used on a trip to Rio de Janeiro. "Adopted British, you might say. I hold a certain predilection, a fondness, for the place."

The man grimaced and said, "Rains way too much for my liking. What's your name, sir?"

"Doctor. Just Doctor."

"Doctor, eh? A doctor of what, exactly?"

"Oh, you know. This and that. Jack of all trades and a master of none. Peripatetic. And what's your name, Inspector Clouseau?"

The skinny fellow doffed his black hat in such a gentlemanly fashion it was almost comical. "My name is Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg."

"Gesundheit."

The man had enough pride to look a touch contrite. He murmured into his trench coat collar, "No, that's really my name. My parents had a strange sense of humor."

The Doctor blinked incredulously. "You're joking."

"My father was stone drunk at the time, if that's any excuse."

"Well . . ." The Doctor looked him up and down skeptically, and couldn't stop himself feeling a stab of pity for the hodgepodge detective. For some strange reason, he had developed an immediate fondness for the poor chap. "While I appreciate your honesty, as well as the fact that you seem to bear me no ill will, HarmonicaViolin—"

"Harmarmalafarvalin."

"Whatever. While I appreciate your candidness, you still haven't told me why you're following me. If you don't intend to turn me in, why bother? I hate to be belligerent, but you seem remarkably prepared for a confrontation."

"As I've said, you're not the most nondescript person in New York, Doctor. You piqued my curiosity."

He harumphed, "That's as may be, you've been following me along the Hudson for the better part of five city blocks. The evidence suggests that you knew exactly who to look for, even before our acquaintance. You've been prepared for my arrival for some time now. Why?"

Inspector Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg did not respond right away. He had, in fact, been searching quite earnestly for a man matching the Doctor's gaudy description, but now that he had actually found him . . . Fogg was unsure as of yet what to make of the colorful, brash stranger.

He eventually admitted, guardedly, "There's someone real high-up who's taken a shining to you, Doctor. Mine isn't the only attention you've caught."

"Who is particular, Mr. HarmonyTerrapin?"

"Harmarmalafarvalin."

"Whatever. Who's the man in charge?"

"We just call him Mr. Tamers. Ain't got any other name, so far as we know."

The Doctor rolled his eyes and retorted with no small amount of mock amusement, "Oh, very droll. Very Al Capone. Does he have a pinstripe suit and a Tommy gun to boot?"

Inspector Fogg frowned. "A what?"

"Never you mind. We're a few years and a world war too early. So . . . this Mr. Tamers. Important chap, is he?"

The detective snorted, "What's your definition of "important", Doctor? He's omnipotent. He's deific. He's a god in of himself, gazing down over his subjects like old Lucifer over Hell. He never visits the city, he's too good for that. Keeps himself penned up in some makeshift base on Long Island, but the rumor is he's running the entire political machine in Lower Manhattan. Got the police under his thumb, and the city officials running in circles like goddamn chickens with their heads cut off. And he's got enough money to make Morgan and Rockefeller think twice about crossing him."

The Doctor muttered to himself, "Money can cover a multitude of sins. I distinctly remember the early 20th Century social ladder possessing a few substantial gaps between the rungs."

"Anyway," Fogg continued, "a few weeks ago, Mr. Tamers's fellas starting getting a little tense. The head man himself was distributing dossiers, detailed covers of a specific group of people. Physical descriptions, known accomplices, favorite flavor of ice cream—"

"Let me guess," the Doctor interrupted, "I made the list."

"Your face has been circulated around every law department in inner city New York. Every detective and police officer from here to the Bronx is scouring the streets for you and your . . . accomplice. You're the most wanted man this side of the Hudson—one of the thirteen faces on Mr. Tamers's collection of dossiers."

"But we've only just arrived! I've been here barely two hours and already I've been chased by a drunken mob, ruined my best shoes, lost my friends, and stranded myself in the middle of New York City! And now I'm being told I have a price on my head! All I wanted to do was investigate a time anomaly. Is that really too much to ask? Hang on a mo . . ." A nasty thought suddenly occurred to the Doctor, and he ceased his whining. "Did you say thirteen?"

"Yeah. Thirteen faces, thirteen completely different people. There was a younger, blond man, a guy with a smile bigger and whiter than a crescent of Brie cheese, a rugged fella with close-cropped hair and big ears . . ."

"_Stop!_" The Doctor clapped his hands over his ears. "I don't want to hear it."

"Why not?"

"Knowledge of my future, MarmaladeVitamin. Dangerous stuff." He tentatively removed a fist from his left earhole. "Out of curiosity, where'd I fall on the list?"  
"Sixth. Between the blond fella and the dark, shifty one with the . . ."

_"My Bonnie lies over the ocean, my Bonnie lies over the sea!"_ The Doctor drowned out the detective's voice under his caterwauling. _"My Bonnie lies over the ocean, oh, bring back my Bonnie to me!"_

Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg just gaped.

"Foreknowledge is a dangerous thing Mr. Marma . . . Harmon . . . Harna . . ." The Doctor huffed in frustration, "Look, can't I just call you Fogg? Time and tide waits for no man, especially men with names that are seven syllables long! I'll take Fogg over Vitameatavegamin or whatever your real name is any day of the year."

"Don't care, Doc."

Harmarmalafarvalin—Fogg—suddenly felt an overwhelming urge to light up. Nervous habit. What had started out as a curious morning had turned a touch too strange for his simple tastes.

Fogg was not a wholly remarkable fellow, an easy face to overlook in a crowd. He was Brooklyn born and raised, but without many of the brazen qualities that usually came with the territory. His old neighborhood, the shot remnants of the Canarsie fishing villages, was a rough area with an atmosphere that warranted no quarter for stupid mistakes. Police didn't hold much sway in Canarsie, which was why Fogg had felt inclined to add himself to the lowly ranks of law and order. But, as the Doctor had pointed out so bluntly, Fogg was not really cut out to be the intimidating type. He overcompensated too much for his normality. In reality, underneath the bluff and bluster, Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg was not flashy in looks or attitude, he prided himself on a humble disposition, without coming across as overly servile, and he never deviated from duty . . . until tonight.

There was something about this stranger, this Doctor. Fogg knew what he was supposed to do, what Mr. Tamers had specified be done should one of the thirteen be found. But for some reason, the private eye couldn't bring himself to do the terrible deed. He couldn't hold himself to Canarsie standards . . .

"You need my help," blurted Fogg.

"I hate to be contrary," the Doctor did not sound very apologetic, "but I am remarkably capable of looking after myself, thank you."

"You're looking for someone," Inspector Fogg argued, "a pretty girl from Baltimore. She was mentioned heavily in your section of the dossier. I saw you get separated from her earlier tonight."

"And I suppose you just happen to know where she ran off to, do you?"

"I have no idea, Doctor. All I know is that you and your girlfriend won't last two days out there on your own without someone in the know helping you along. I like to think New York hasn't dried up my moral fiber quite yet, and Mr. Tamers's instructions were a little too terminating for my fancy. He instructed us to take the girl alive, not to harm her under any circumstances. To bring her straight to him on Long Island."

The Doctor's blue eyes lit up. "That's the second time you've mentioned Long Island."

"Yeah. That's Mr. Tamers's territory. He's penned up some 50 miles up north, in Shoreham."

The Doctor looked ecstatic. "That's the location of the Wardenclyffe Laboratories, unless I'm much mistaken."

"I don't know of any laboratories, Doctor, but Wardenclyffe's that new power station overlooking the Long Island Sound. The site's huge, something like 200 acres."

"Of course!" The Doctor slapped his forehead. "This is wonderful! This can't be a coincidence, Mr. Fogg. The man who hired you must be at the center of the time anomaly! The two are connected!"

"You mean Mr. Tamers is hiding out in that power station? In Shoreham?"

The Doctor eyed the spindly detective. "Yes. You said you wanted to help?"

"Hmm mmm."

"Arrest me. Lock me up. Take me to Mr. Tamers. At the risk of sounding terribly clichéd, take me to your leader." He chuckled, "I've always wanted to say that."  
Fogg looked positively horrified. "I can't do that, Doctor."

"Why ever not, man? If this Mr. Tamers of yours is looking for me, and he happens to be headquartered at the very place I want to be, it would seem illogical to waste our energy trying to sneak in. Just arrest me, cart me over there, collect your reward, and let me handle the messy bits. I hardly expect you to understand, but there is a major discrepancy in the time-space continuum that has waves of rogue chronon energy emanating from an epicenter at Wardenclyffe! Therefore, whomever is responsible for the anomaly is also at Wardenclyffe!"

"You misunderstand me, Doctor." Fogg tried to explain, "Mr. Tamers said to look out for a broad, curly-haired man in an obscenely colored coat and bumblebee pants—"

"Charming," grumbled the Doctor.

"—and he said you could be seen with a small, shapely brunette. As I said before, he wanted us to take the girl alive, not to harm her under any circumstances. To bring her straight to him in Shoreham."

The Doctor's eyes narrowed, and his voice turned pensive. "Peri's prominence is all of this is further unnerving me. "

Fogg continued, but he sounded grave, "He just wanted the girl, Doctor. As for you, well . . . the price on your head rides on the proof of your dead body. Mr. Tamers wants you out of the way, for good.

"Unless you let me help you, your young friend will be at the mercy of the most devious, most powerful man in New York City. And you'll be dead within the hour."


	6. Chapter 5: Cracks

_"A single ray of light from a distant star falling upon the eye of a tyrant in bygone times, may have altered the course of his life, may have changed the destiny of nations, may have transformed the surface of the globe, so intricate, so inconceivably complex are the processes of nature."_

_— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

"I . . . can't . . . run . . . anymore," gasped Peri, her chest heaving against the tight shirtwaist. Her skin was sweaty and her clothes clung like a surfer's wetsuit to her skin. She was so exhausted, her sprint had weakened to a weak power walk.

Frobisher was in weary agreement. He puffed, "Okay . . . I think we . . . lost them . . . anyway."

The two companions brought themselves to an abrupt halt, the echoes of their fading footfalls bouncing between the tightly-knit tenements. They did not say anything for a while as they allowed their burning lungs to suck-in oxygen. Frobisher fanned his rained-soaked, sweaty blond hair with the brim of his Homburg hat, while Peri leaned gratefully against the solid frame of an empty doorway, resting her screaming legs.

"Perhaps . . . quitting the track team wasn't my brightest move in high school," said Peri hoarsely, allowing herself a harsh chuckle. "God knows I've needed it, running around with the Doctor."

Frobisher looked somewhat peeved. "I chose this body in particular because it was supposed to be athletic. I can't say I got my money's worth!"

"He was good at cricket," Peri pointed out, but added, "though cricket's not exactly the pinnacle of aerobic activity. Actually, come to think of it, I'm not sure it's the pinnacle of anything. It's so . . ."

"Boring?" suggested Frobisher with a grin, his and Peri's mind on the same wavelength. They were so cold and tired they began to burble.

"Yes! I don't understand the appeal of it! Cricket's a game of baseball that never ends!"

The Whifferdill suddenly switched his voice, becoming prim, British, and instantly recognizable, "Now, Perpugilliam, cricket is the product of an enlightened era of camaraderie and a testament to feats of strength and courage unparalleled in all of Earth's history. I remember this one occasion I said to W.G. Grace, 'Billy' I said, 'Billy' . . ."

Peri burst out laughing. "Uncanny! Oh my God, that's exactly what he would say!"

Her sentence faded on her lips, and Peri went quiet. Frobisher, for a while, had a delighted smile stapled on his face, but it soon morphed into an awkward, forced line as his companion's pensive silence dragged on.

"Righty then." Frobisher's voice returned to normal. He shuffled uncomfortably in his starchy 20th Century attire, now positively drenched from the wintry rain. "What do we do now?"

Peri shrugged noncommittally. "Find the Doctor, I guess. He doesn't exactly blend into a crowd."

"But this is New York, the Big Apple, the largest city in the world! We don't have a clue where's he's gone!"

Peri tried to sound somewhat authoritative and in complete control of the situation. "Okay. We ran to the left, and he ran to the right, in the opposite direction. So we turn around, retrace our steps, and meet up with him. If this is New York, that drunk said Manhattan, then we're bound to hit a river sometime. East or Hudson."

Frobisher didn't attempt to hide his skepticism. "What about if he's decided to investigate the time anomaly on his own? If he's caught a cab, he could be halfway to Whitehall by now! What if he's on the ferry headed for Long Island already?"

"Look, Debby Downer, I don't see you coming up with any brilliant ideas!"

"I have a stupendous idea, actually," retorted Frobisher. "We go back to the TARDIS and wait for him there!"

"What? No!"

"Why not, Peri? We keep ourselves out of the way, stay safe, and hang out in the TARDIS until the Doc clears the mess up and comes back with shawarma and gyros for dinner. If he ever wants to get out of this time period, he's bound to make his way back to the TARDIS eventually. Anyway, the time whatchamacallit isn't our issue."

"I'm not about to let the Doctor go blundering into danger on his own! Besides, Tesla contacted me first! I'm involved whether you like it or not!"

"All the more reason to get you out of the way. It's not safe here, in the dark. Not safe for me, and not safe for you, Peri! Why must Earth people always be so parochial? Your stubbornness makes me sometimes wonder why I like the people of this miserable planet so much."

Something immediately struck Peri as odd, and the young woman's eyes widened. "You sound . . . different. That's not your normal voice, is it?"

"It most certainly is! Besides, the illusion is always one of normality."

"Your accent, it's British! You're not Frobisher!"

"Frobisher? Who on Gallifrey is Frobisher? I'm the Docto—_ah!"  
_  
Frobisher grasped at his head, burying his fingers into the folds of long blond hair. He struggled to breathe through a wrenching pain in his gut. His eyes and face were soon bloodshot from the strain of holding his breath. His fit passed after a few heart-stopping moments, but he looked incredibly shaken and ashen-faced. Peri inched forward and placed a concerned and comforting hand on his damp shoulder.

"You okay?"

"I–I'm not sure." He shook his head in an effort to clear it. "I don't remember, exactly."

"For a second you . . . your voice." Peri swallowed, unsure of what else to say.

Frobisher tried to describe the sensation. His voice was barely above a murmur. "It felt as though a fire were burning in my head. Jeez, it hurt! I could see all kinds of things: stars and galaxies and more abstract things: possibilities, inevitabilities, consequences, as if time itself were a tossed salad in my mind."

Peri was getting seriously worried. "I don't think that was you, Frobisher, who was speaking a second ago. For a moment, you were the Doctor. The other Doctor! My Doctor!"

"This has never happened before. Every time I take someone's form, it's still me. Last time I impersonated the Doctor, during the Gringax affair, everything worked out hunky dory. He never tried to retake control like that. I didn't even know it was possible for him to retake control like that!"

"Do you think it may have something to do with the Doctor's temporal anomaly? The universe coming apart at the seams? The walls of time crumbling down?"

"Very poetic," Frobisher drawled sarcastically. "Though, you may have a point. Maybe, since history is winding back on itself, coming apart at the seams, as you said, the Doctor's former selves are leaking through the cracks. Perhaps I should change into someone else for the time being . . ."

"Frobisher."

"Pity, though. I thought this body had a sort of youthful charm about it . . ."

"Umm, Frobisher?"

"What, Peri? Can't you see I'm busy feeling sorry for myself?"

"Yeah, and that's great and all, except that I think we may have a bit of a problem."

"As if we didn't have enough already. I wasn't aware we were so well off in the complications department." Frobisher continued to fiddle with his lapels, dreaming himself a new set of clothes. "What's wrong now?"

"There's a guy standing behind me."

Frobisher spun around in alarm, for he had not heard anyone approach. His face fell when he squeaked, "Oh. Yes there is."

"And he's holding a gun to my back."

Frobisher gulped. "Yes he is."

Peri gasped as a lithe arm looped around her neck. She was hugged to the chest of a man built like the Gollum of Prague, more reinforced concrete than muscle and bone. The cold barrel of his gun moved from her lower back to nuzzle itself against her damp hair.

"Great," she growled through gritted teeth, "just great. Precisely what we need right now."

"You do me an injustice, my dear." Martin Cooper whispered in her ear, his voice oily and oleaginous, "I rarely get the opportunity to make the acquaintance of a pretty girl in these parts."

Peri had dealt with intergalactic creeps more times than she cared to remember, and this guy was no different. "Sorry to say, you're not really my type!"

Peri shot the heel of her boot into the man's shin. She heard a satisfying crack that should have sent any normal person stumbling away in agony. Unfortunately, all it seemed to do was make him angry. He batted the end of his Colt Peacemaker against the side of her skull, and her vision exploded into bursts of black and red light. His arm around her neck tensed, and Peri gagged in an effort to draw a breath.

Frobisher's eyes bugged in alarm. "Have we upset you in some way Mr . . .?"

"Cooper. Martin Cooper." His dispassionate eyes flashed dangerously. "I make people disappear."

"That's . . . not very reassuring. You let Peri go right now or I'll . . . I'll do something . . . not very nice!"

"Your threats have me quivering in my boots. I would have expected more from the great and imperious Doctor! Though," he gave Frobisher a dismissive head-to-toe scan, "it appears as though I got the fifth model on the dossier, and I was told you were the wet blanket of the group."

"But I'm not the Doc—"

Peri shook her head maniacally, shushing Frobisher before he could say the damning words. At her obvious desperation, the Whifferdill shut up. Fortunately, Cooper didn't seem to notice their exchange.

"How . . . do you know . . . the Doctor?" Peri managed to choke out, changing the subject, "What . . . do you want . . . with us?"

Cooper looked down at her, and caressed the side of her face with the nuzzle of his gun. "Why, my employer is very well acquainted with the Doctor, my dear. All thirteen of him, in fact. Though he's far more interested in you this evening."

"Most . . . people would just send . . . a request . . . for an . . . RSVP."

Cooper chuckled, "Just think of me as the mail carrier." He turned and gave Frobisher a disdainful glare. "Your lady friend and I are going for a little trip, Doctor. And I regret to inform you that you didn't make the cut for the guest list."

"I go where Peri goes," affirmed Frobisher, steeling his words. "If you want to take her anywhere, you'll have to get past me first!"

Peri was almost impressed by his bravery, until Cooper took the gun from her head, cocked the safety catch, and aimed it squarely at Frobisher's waistcoated chest.

"That won't be too much of a problem," said Cooper. "My employer was very specific about what to do with you, and our arrangement didn't involve too many heroics on your part. Two bullets, one for each heart. Not especially difficult."

Frobisher looked panicked. "Y–you don't want to do that."

Cooper tightened his grip on Peri to keep her squirming shoulders from interfering with his aim. "Humor me, Doctor. Why not? What's to stop me from pumping a round into your chest and leaving you here on the street for the sewer rats to deal with?"

Frobisher flubbed, his mouth opening and closing like a hungry goldfish's.

"Nothing, Doctor? Pity. You've made this rather too easy. You're really no fun at all." Cooper's thin finger began to squeeze the trigger . . .

"Telepathic bridge!" shrieked Peri, her chest screaming in protest. "Don't kill him . . . telepathic bridge!"

Cooper cocked his gun and jammed it under Peri's quivering chin. "What was that, my dear?"

"I'd tell you . . . if you'd . . . stop snapping . . . my spine . . . in half!"

Cooper released his grip a fraction of a degree, and Peri took gulping breaths of blessed air. She twisted in his grip until the gun no longer jabbed haphazardly against her jawline. Frobisher looked just short of bursting into tears, he was so relieved.

"If you know the Doctor, then you also know he possesses innate telepathic abilities, and the Doctor and I share a telepathic connection." Peri lied through her teeth, "When there's someone he really cares about, when there's someone he wants to keep safe, he initiates a sort of . . . Vulcan mind-meld and links his thoughts to mine. It means that he always knows where I am and when I'm in trouble. But it also means we share the same emotions. Sadness. Loss. Terror. Pain. If you kill Frob—the Doctor, I die too. Double or nothing, buster."

Cooper bared his teeth and flashed Frobisher a look of icy hate that froze him to the spot. "Getting a little personable with the companions, are we? Do you take me for a fool?"

Frobisher's mind worked at a million miles an hour. He stuttered, trying to infuse his words with more conviction than he himself felt, "Oh, not at all, Mr. Cooper. She's telling the truth. The, erm . . . duotronic telepathic transference, between my superior Time Lord mind and her's is stabilizing the, uh . . . ion phase balance . . . in our brains. You break the transference whatsit and we both go _kaput_."

Peri could have slapped her forehead in despair. Frobisher's technobabble was worse than the most convoluted episode of _Star Trek_. Fortunately for her, the hesitant lowering of Cooper's gun told her that he hadn't completely dismissed the fib. He was still a result of the times, wrenched out of his safe abode of historical fact and into the turmoil of science fiction.

"How do I know you're telling the truth?" asked Cooper, fairly reasonably.

Frobisher was warming up to the roll now. "You don't. You're just going to have to trust us."

_I'm part of one huge Tony Baretta reenactment,_ Peri thought despairingly.

"I don't make a habit of trusting hits. Dead men die with their secrets."

"Ah yes, but," Frobisher pointed out, "if you do decide to trust those trigger-happy instincts of yours and shoot me, but kill Peri in the process, what's your employer going to say about that, hmm? Do you really want to risk it?"

Cooper's cheek twitched, and a skittish light came into his hooded eyes. His choke hold on Peri finally slackened as his entire body poised in serious consideration of the "Doctor's" words. Frobisher had been in enough life and death situations with the real Doctor, and had been a penguin hunting enough haddock in the TARDIS swimming pool, to recognize the look of a trapped animal when he saw one.

This guy was frightened, scared witless of his mysterious employer. The risk of harming Peri clearly outweighed the risk of sparing Frobisher's life.

"All right." Martin Cooper gestured with his gun, waving Peri and Frobisher deeper into the alley. "You're both coming with me. Our transport's waiting."  
"Where are you taking us?" asked Peri.

Cooper grunted with disgust, "Somewhere away from this miserable hive of a city. Somewhere nice and quiet, and away from wandering eyes. A resort by the sea."

Something occurred to Frobisher. "This resort wouldn't happen to be a place by the name of Wardenclyffe, would it?"

"Maybe it is, and maybe it isn't. I'm hardly likely to disclose specifics to the likes of you."

"You're a heap of laughs, aren't you?" Frobisher snorted, "I've heard less hackneyed phrases in a James Bond movie. And more intelligent chatter from a monkey with a typewriter."

In recompense for that sarcasm, Frobisher received a nasty knock on his temple from the butt end of Cooper's gun. Peri gave a little yelp as her companion swayed dizzyingly on his feet, and then lurched forward, eyes fluttering. She caught his prone form before he could fall.

"That wasn't necessary!" said Peri shrilly.

"I kill people, my dear," whispered Cooper with lightly-veiled malice. "Being as my clientele rarely savor the opportunity to voice their opinions concerning my methods, it should hardly matter to me if I am doing my job to your satisfaction! Now get moving, or your friend may not recover from the next accident so tidily. Do I make myself clear?"

"Irrefutibababbibly," Frobisher groaned drunkenly. Peri gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder.

Cooper's face split into a shuddersome half smile. "Pleased to hear it. As I said, I am a killer. My patience is not infinite, and I'm not completely sure how "in tact" my employer wants you. If you give me any more trouble . . ." He lashed out, and held Peri's chin in his slimy fingers. "We'll have a little fun, make my troubles worthwhile, eh?"

Something not unlike a bowling ball slid into the recesses of Peri's stomach. She wrenched her face out of his hands, and fixed him with a withering glower.

"You're sick."

"That I am, my dear. That I am."

Peri sneered at him, and supported the barely-conscious Frobisher in her arms. Prodded by the unsafe end of Cooper's gun, the two companions made their slow journey into the thickening, foggy darkness of the New York alley. Frobisher was coming around very slowly, and in the meantime, Peri struggled under his dead weight. She was unpleasantly reminded of Androzani again, of the very bleak flashes of memory of the dying Doctor carrying her back to the TARDIS. Their roles were switched. If the situation were different, if Frobisher were all right, and if she weren't so damned frightened, the irony would have been humorous.  
When the alley opened up onto the misty main street, a cab was waiting for them. Cooper's carriage was dark and nondescript. The pitch black steed was skeletal and smoky, his bones jabbing sharply against his flanks. His breath billowed in the rainy air, and he whinnied mournfully as Peri and Frobisher caught his eye behind his blinker. The driver of the cab stared ahead with a blank, glassy gaze, his eyes like marbles. Peri wasn't sure if he was an android or if he'd been hypnotized. It was still hard for her to tell.

The scene was that of one of her favorite Greek myths, of Hades and Persephone and the changing of the seasons. She felt like the goddess, spirited away in the chariot of the dead into the unfathomable depths of the Underworld, where no light shone and no hope resided. Away from the world of Spring and Summer, and into the wastes of Winter.

"Oh, Doctor," murmured Peri into the cold air. "Where are you?"


	7. Chapter 6: Tesla's Desolation

_"The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."_

_— Nikola Tesla, Modern Mechanics and Inventions, October, 1934 —_

* * *

There was a low, desolate wind whipping between the stones in the walls. That, and the dripping rivulets of mildew and rot, provided the only ambiance in the dark space.

The whole room was falling apart at the seams. The building was new, but the architect had apparently held a predilection for recreating 15th Century dungeons. The crumbling edifice dribbled brick dust into little piles on the floor — grey, powdery cairns marked the corners of the room. The air was frigid from the constant sting of the wind blowing off Long Island Sound, and the walls dripped with salty, condensed sea breeze. The room was cold, and wet, and enclosed, like the smallest metal container suspended in the midst of the deepest, darkest ocean, away from the life and light of the outside world. The only respite in the dank gloom of the prison was a single window, barely bigger than the width of a man's head. The window was located more than 15 feet up the sheer wall—a gateway to an unattainable freedom. Beams of weak sunlight, struggling to break through the thick cloud layer and impenetrable fog outside, formed a minuscule pool of golden ichor on the ground.

Sitting in the folds of the maize circle was a tall specter of a man, wrapped in a jumble of long, dark cloaks to protect himself from the cold. His hair was long, but well-groomed and tucked behind his big ears, as if he were trying to retain some manner of spruceness and personal dignity. His pale face was sallow, craving light and fresh air like a sun-starved troglodyte. Even his eyes, once sparking with the enchanting euphoria of discovery and never-ending passion for innovation, had turned shadowed.

The man was weakened by his fear. He starred at corners, trying to devise the beautiful pictures of creation within his mind and being thwarted by the sheer hopelessness of his predicament every time. The whipping gale off Long Island Sound ruffled his hair, and caused his thin, frail frame to shiver with gooseflesh. He wrapped his cloaks around him, hunching his shoulders, disappearing into himself, trying to draw warmth from his own body.

He was a prisoner in a prison of his own design, Daedalus trapped at the center of his maze. The huge structure, one of the most advanced stations of power transduction and generation in the world, had regressed from a technological marvel headed by a genius to an insane asylum housing but a single patient, who had been left alone to stew in his prison's dark belly. He was kept as little more than a curiosity, a joke, a record forced to spin around and around on its turntable, cranked by an excitable malefactor who fed off the music of his suffering.

The man chuckled to himself—a harsh, scratchy cackle that quickly regressed into a fit of chest-heaving coughs. The damp and the cold had gotten into his lungs, but still the man was amused by the little flash of irony his thoughts had regurgitated for his amusement. Imagine, to be left so hopeless and desolate that he had resorted to finding empathy in his comparisons to one of Thomas Edison's inventions. Him, Nikola Tesla, a disk on the phonograph of Wardenclyffe Laboratories!

_Phonograph. The phonograph uses a reproducer. Reproducer. Electric pickup coil. R.T. rectifier and amplifier. 3-way sound valve. Sound. Music. Rathausball-Tänze by Johann Strauss II. Romantic orchestration. Orchestra. Conductor. Leader. Controller. Control. Power. Dominance. Mastery . . . Master._

Tesla had an eidetic memory, and his trail of conscious and unconscious thought was as tangled as Ariadne's ball of string. As the long and arduous days of imprisonment wore on, it was becoming increasingly difficult to untangle those strings of memory from the loom of unmentionable evil nestled at its heart. The phantom, the nameless fear, hovered over his creative ponderings like a storm cloud, and smothered them like the downpour of a summer squall. No matter what tangential path his thoughts traversed, his hellish tormentor, the mysterious Master, lay waiting in the shadows.

He was a redoubtable enemy, possessed of an intellect that rivaled Tesla's own. What he lacked in scruples and any sense of morality he made up for in sheer gall and his will to dominate.

_Dominate. Govern. Rule. Balance of power. Reciprocation of weakness with power. Two sides of the coin. His mastery . . . and my servitude._

Tesla shook his head, trying to dismiss the maudlin thoughts. His ponderings took meandering paths through his mind and threatened to lead him away from the task at hand. He sat at a small, immaculately neat table, covered in piles of spare equipment. He squinted in the pool of weak sunlight, trying to discern the finer details of his current project, one of the thousands he had been forced to make for so long now, the days had blurred together.  
The year was 1903. And Nikola Tesla had been under the dominance of the Master for nearly ten years.

Eidetic memory or not, it was oftentimes difficult to envision that dark night in 1884, after the best and worse decision of Tesla's life. It was hard to remember the day he had forsaken his safe enslavement under the fist of Thomas Edison, and placed himself into the indeterminate and unforgiving hands of fate. Tesla had found out too soon, though, that his particular fate was to be directed by the gloved hand of a small, dark man with a beard.

That night had been the end of the dream, and the beginning of the nightmare.

Tesla, from the start, had refused to submit to the Master's dominance, to his hold over the minds and bodies of his other unthinking, unfeeling slaves. The villain had tried to assert his control on a number of occasions, but Tesla had sought refuge within his own mental constructs, barricading himself behind impenetrable walls of sheer willpower. Tesla would not be overcome. Could not be overcome. Every fiber of his being balked at the notion of loosing control, of becoming a pawn in someone else's game. He refused to have his greatest assets, his intellect and his self-reliance, wrenched away by a puppeteer who tugged at the heartstrings of men as if they were little more than a troupe of soulless marionettes. Tesla was strong, and fought long and hard to snap the chains of the Master's will.

He had earned his release; the villain had given up. Like a starving desert wanderer thrust into a glittering oasis, Tesla had snatched at his freedom with greedy fingers. For a time, the younger Tesla could fool himself into thinking that he had won, that he had outwitted the evil stranger who hid his true intent as well as his own name under a cloak of riddle and deceit. Tesla began to pick up the threads of his old life, and for a time, his brief but painful psychological struggle with the Master faded to the recesses of his mind.

The winter of 1887 was the most damnable of his life, a time of terrible headaches and bitter tears. He spent many long, cold hours knee-deep in icy mud, digging trenches for little more than two dollars a day. He had been betrayed and neglected by Thomas Edison, the Rahway investors, and countless others, and soon began to question the purpose of his education and the very meaning of his life. Suicide, though never an outspoken choice, hovered on the fringes of his mind. He had his opportunities, but was too cowardly to do the deed.

His salvation came in the form of Alfred S. Brown of the Western Union, who had been taken with Tesla's theories of alternating current some years earlier and sought to do business with the destitute inventor. Tesla had leapt at the opportunity to dig himself out of the dirt, quite literally. After a hasty series of negotiations with Brown and a New York City attorney named Charles F. Peck, Tesla agreed to split his patents on a fifty-fifty basis in exchange for funding. Brown located the first laboratories at 89 Liberty Street in New York, and before the month was out, the Tesla Electric Company had filed for its first patents.

The years following Tesla's deliverance from the brink of despair flew by with remarkable speed, to the point where Tesla was planning his business endeavors years and decades in advance, rather than focusing on the happenings of the present. The incorrigibly enthusiastic inventor churned out patent after patent. He lectured across the country and across the world at the most prestigious scientific institutions, hiking everywhere from Philadelphia to Paris to London. For a time, Tesla found himself an unwitting celebrity, a genius at the pinnacle of his career.

Like so many things plaguing the aspects of his life, Tesla's zenith was too good to be true, too perfect to uphold any vestiges of reality. It was in the late winter of 1895 when the mirage of Tesla's freedom, his oasis in his desert of suppression, finally came crumbling down.

On March 13th, 1895, Nikola Tesla split the fabric of the universe apart.

Tesla had long suspected that time and space could be influenced by rotating magnetic fields of highly charged particles. His experimentation with radio frequencies and the transmission of electrical energy through the atmosphere proved that spacial molecules could be moulded and manipulated to take on specific characteristics. Even, perhaps, the characteristics of spacial, and perhaps temporal, portals in the fabric of reality. Time and space could be breached, or warped, creating a "doorway" that could lead to other time frames.

But he always attributed such formidable insights to the mechanisms of his overactive imagination. They were theories, ideas, nothing provable through experimentation, and certainly nothing his fellows in the ascended hierarchy would ever take seriously. Or so he thought.

His exact memories of that bleak, breezy afternoon in March were somewhat bleary, deliquesced like watercolors in the rain. He was still headquartered at his Liberty Street laboratory at the time, his only company being a skinny, lethargic lab assistant more interested in earning enough money to give up his part time courier job than with helping Tesla with his experiments. That particular day, he had been working with a prototype of an alternating current generator that could, in theory, transmit electrical impulses along precise lines of conductivity to power stations positioned strategically across the globe. The prototype required an enormous sum of power, more than the city council of New York had been willing to impart unto him without a considerable deal of haggling, bullying, begging, and combinations thereof. Once Tesla had explained the practical, not to mention economical, benefits of the project's success, the council had relinquished control of the city's electrical supply for the duration of the afternoon on the 13th of March.

Tesla's excitement that day wafted off him like an odor. He had felt giddy, nearly euphoric, at the prospect of a successful inception. His enthusiasm was contagious. Even his saturnine assistant was more jovial than usual during the set-up of their first trial run.

But Tesla, in his anticipation and amidst the storm of adrenaline, grew careless. So much attention did he pay to the circuit alignment and power distribution of the generator's twenty dynamos that he did not even pause to ensure that he had secured the live cables to the floor, the cables that linked him directly to New York's massive power grid.

A power grid that would soon pump 3.5 million volts of electricity into Tesla's lash-up.

When Tesla ordered the switch be thrown, the assistant complied eagerly. At first, nothing seemed wrong. The generator was beginning to build up a small magnetic field, emanating from the rapidly rotating metal components of the dynamos. But the loose connection cables were ill prepared to handle the sudden influx of power. Like a pit of vipers riled in their nests, the thick black tubes coiled into the air and convulsed in electrical seizure. The voltage running through them flung them with such force across the room that one of them disconnected itself from the jack on Tesla's generator. The live wire, spitting sparks like dragon fire, whipped from its housings and lashed out at the nearest obstacle with lethal enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, the nearest obstacle happened to be Nikola Tesla.

The spark jumped three feet in the air and struck Tesla's right shoulder. The pain of the impact was indescribable. The unharnessed 3.5 million volts tore through Tesla as well as the magnetic field that surrounded him, turning an inconsequential phenomena into a paralyzing force field. Tesla could not move as hot light, glowing a harsh white, like burning magnesium, enveloped his body and seared his skin and clothing. In the mere nanoseconds that followed, he saw the space within the light splitting open like an eggshell, revealing the depths of an unfathomable black void beyond. Within the maw of darkness, he saw twisting tendrils of light and energy coalescing into unnamable, kaleidoscopic forms that defied his own abilities to comprehend. The color and radiance penetrated deep into his mind, burning through his thoughts but forbidding him to tear his eyes away. Tesla gazed into that void, into the Untempered Schism of reality, and saw Eternity.

He saw the very fabric of time itself.

The spell was broken by his assistant. Panicking, the boy threw the switch into reverse, halting the flow of electricity to the facility. He hastily dragged Tesla's crumpled, lanky form away from the ruined generator. The inventor did not gain consciousness for another two hours, but when he finally woke up, he immediately wished he had not.

He found his mental faculties were not quite as they once had been. Something new stirred within the depths of his mind, a nameless, formless knowledge that hinted at things long lost and things yet to come, of past and future coming to a point like the swirling waters of the Hudson and the East River. He didn't know it yet, nor could he hope to understand the implications, but Tesla had broken into the Time Vortex . . . and lived.

The Master, waiting patiently in the shadows, knew it was time to play his hand.

He had a way into Tesla's psyche now, a direct link by way of the artron energy permeating both of their minds from their shared exposure to the raw radiation of the Time Vortex. The Master had control over his own dose, and using the artron capacitors of his TARDIS, now had control over Tesla's, too.

The Serb remembered when his thoughts no longer became his own, when the alien influences and motivations began to ensnare his mind and direct his body, while he sat on the back burner of his psyche, helpless to intervene. He was left in the dark to scream in fury and frustration at the violation of his self-will. Of course, Tesla knew the perpetrator. The extraneous thoughts were so malicious and steeped in hate that the controller could only be one man. The Master, returning to haunt his every waking hour . . .

"You will build the first Worldwide Wireless System, Nikola Tesla." The words had been poison in his mind, orders that he could not disobey. "Construct the receiver in Shoreham, Long Island, away from the public eye. There, at the base of our divine operations, we shall do great things. There, at Wardenclyffe, we shall bring the universe to its knees."

He was Daedalus, and he was trapped under the fist of King Minos. Wardenclyffe was not the epitome of Tesla's dreams, but rather the Master's. The inventor was fully enslaved to his oppressor's will. The temporal link chained him and made him unable to escape the terrible, awesome power stirring within Wardenclyffe's walls.

The Master had hunted him down and thrown him into the depths of Wardenclyffe's cellars, and Tesla had given in to despair. He was still trapped, even after so many months since the fateful day in March, forced to construct the Master's gadgetry, let out into the daylight and the fresh air to make an occasional public appearance and dissuade any manner of suspicion from the masses.

Tesla knew the Master was scheming, and that he was using him for some nefarious end. But the science, the principles of the temporal techniques the villain dabbled in were so beyond Tesla's own considerable area of expertise that his suffering's true purpose remained unknown to him. The only contact between torturer and tortured occurred when the Master would force Tesla into the sphere centered in the heart of Wardenclyffe's main laboratory, trapping him within a massive electrical generator that made his Liberty Street prototype look like a firecracker. Tesla would be plunged into the burning magnesium light, thrust into the nether-space between tangible reality and the Untempered Schism, screaming as the Time Vortex ripped through his mind. The Master used him like a searchlight, channeling his presence through the void, searching for something. Or someone, as circumstance would have it.

A young woman. A face in the flashes of pain and color, seared into Tesla's mind. An angel in the emptiness.

"She's coming," the man whispered to himself in the hollow darkness. The words sounded dry and tasteless on his lips. "She's coming . . ."

_"Your efforts to warn her have been in vain, Tesla," _the Master assured him cruelly._ "Even as I think to you now, my men are bringing Miss Brown to Wardenclyffe."_

"No . . ."

_"Our work is almost complete. Soon, the entire fabric of reality, the entire Web of Time, will come crashing down about our feet. Entropy will reign. Chaos will replace order. And there is nothing you, the Doctor, or anyone else can do to stop it. Destiny is unfolding, and I, the Master, am at its epicenter!"_


	8. Chapter 7: The Goose In The Bottle

_"No desire for material advantages has animated me in all this work, though I hope, for the sake of the continuance of my labors, that these will soon follow, naturally, as a compensation for valuable services rendered to science and industry."_

_— Nikola Tesla, The Electrical Review, March 29, 1899 —_

* * *

The TARDIS was behaving like a small child.

The ship's interior lighting had dimmed to a point where the Doctor could barely see three inches in front of his own nose. The monochromatic dullness was enough to make even his obscenely gaudy coat look grey and drab. The control console hummed mournfully, and refused to spit back any of the information requested by the Doctor. The scanner remained fixed on the New York alley outside, and did not waver for any manner of the Doctor's cajoling. When he attempted to punch in the coordinates for Shoreham, Long Island, the time rotor juddered for a split second and the entire ship wheezed in protest, but Time Lord and time machine remained precisely where they were. If the Doctor were a whimsical man, he would go as far as to say the TARDIS was having a tantrum.

"More likely," he muttered to himself as he tried, and failed, yet again to bring up a slew of temporal readouts on the scanner, "the TARDIS is reacting badly to the localized time distortion. While the cataclysm hasn't quite happened yet, the TARDIS is close enough to the waves of potential temporal energy emanating from Wardenclyffe for it to interfere with her drive systems. The old girl won't be going anywhere for a while . . ."

The Doctor's new friend, and somewhat cautious ally as of the moment, stood just beyond the front doors of the police box, wondering what in hell's name could be going on inside. The Doctor had been quite adamant about his staying outside, and Fogg had been too tired and too confused to argue. He whiled away the time by resting in the shadows of an open doorway, arching an eyebrow every now and again at the muffled shouts and curses coming from within the police box.

The Doctor, meanwhile, in an attempt to distract himself from the matter of the TARDIS's parking boot, ran an encephalographic scan on Fogg's brain as the private eye waited for him unwittingly outside the TARDIS. The Time Lord thought it more than odd that in the day and age of the spoils system, social castes, corporate corruption, government machines, and rampant poverty, a destitute detective had just so happened to have a burst of conscience. Who in their right mind would surrender a generous reward and agree to help the fugitive in question purely out of the goodness of their hearts? From what the Doctor knew about humans, the facts presented just didn't add up. And he wasn't prepared to trust Fogg as far as he could throw him until his suspicions had been completely done away with.

In the meantime, the Doctor accepted the fact that he had an ally in the shadowy shantytown of New York, albeit a shady one. Peri and Frobisher had not returned to the TARDIS as the Doctor had hoped, and that made their current predicaments quite worrisome. Loathe as he was to admit it, the Doctor needed all the help he could get.

Fogg's encephalographic scan revealed nothing unbalanced in his brain. He wasn't insane or psychotic, and given the lack of anomalous energy readings in his prefrontal cortex, he didn't appear to be prone to lying. The only remarkable thing was how completely normal he seemed. His brain scan could have come off the pages of a neurology textbook.

_At least he isn't planning to murder me._

Satisfied for the time being, the Doctor switched off the scanner, pocketed his trionic key, and closed the front doors to the TARDIS. He had a feeling he would not be returning to the old thing for quite some time.

"Get everything you need in there?" asked Fogg nonchalantly, though he kept a wary eye fixed on the mysterious blue cabinet.

"Not as much as I would have hoped for," admitted the Doctor grudgingly, "but enough. My friends didn't return."

Fogg looked a mite sympathetic. "Is there anywhere else they could have gone?"

"Unlikely. Unless, of course, they went looking for me out of some misplaced sense of valor. Peri's just the person who's likely to do that sort of fool thing."  
"They're probably just as worried about you as you are about them, you know. It's instinct for friends to look after each other."

"Instinct, Mr. Fogg," the Doctor stated, "is what gets people killed in my line of work."

"And what is your line of work, Doctor?"

"I told you: peripatetic. I get around a bit."

"Are you a Doctor of medicine or just another one of those charlatans from Battery Park trying to sell me water from the Fountain of Youth in a whisky bottle?"

"I'll have you know, I am nothing of the sort!" proclaimed the Doctor as he puffed his chest. "Wherever I go, I try to fix . . . things. Be it people, entire cities, or entire planets, I am usually quite well-received by those in a crisis."

Fogg didn't know what to make of the "entire planets" lark, but he kept his concerns to himself.

"And are those two friends of yours, Miss Brown and Mr. Frobisher, just along for the ride?"

The Doctor snorted, "You could say that. Peri was palmed off to me by a former colleague, as it were. Frobisher tricked himself into my confidence. Needless to say, both were unanticipated company, but they have provided some manner of reprieve from the loneliness of the job."

"Are Miss Brown and Frobisher . . .?"

"They're friends. As they'll be the first to attest."

"Are you and Miss Brown hitched, then?"

The Doctor looked positively appalled. "Good heavens, no! I'm responsible for her safety and well-being. I would never dream of overstepping those bounds, and neither would Peri!"

Fogg frowned. "I'm afraid that doesn't make much sense to me, Doctor. Why would two young people abandon every aspect of their regular lives to go traveling to who-knows-where with you if not out of some sort of marital or family duty? Why leave everything behind?"

The Doctor considered. No one had ever asked him that before, but as he thought more and more, it seemed like a perfectly reasonable question. One that he could, at the very least, try to answer in a way a man from 1903 could understand.

"I offer them the opportunity to expand their horizons, I suppose," said the Doctor, choosing his words concisely and carefully. "With me, they get to meet other people and experience other places that shatter their close-minded views about their small slice of the universe. They finally get to think and imagine for themselves without the mundane dogma of the 9 to 5 routine plaguing their minds. They get to see some of the beauty and the majesty of what's really out there, appreciate it with virgin eyes, and become all the wiser for it. I think the reason people chose to travel with me, the reason they abandon their regular lives, as you so eloquently put it, is because they want their perspectives to take a beating. They want their ideologies toppled, their structure broken. Many of my companions had become disillusioned with the way their worlds were shaping out to be and, I think, craved a reminder that not all the universe was war and poverty and injustice. We fight injustice. We fight the ideas and the dogmas that create the disillusionment. I think, with me, people believe they can truly make a difference."

It sounded like a showman's blurb, but Fogg was impressed nevertheless. He twisted a toothpick between his teeth, a substitute for that damn cigarette he could not get his hands on. "You must be some doctor, if you can give people all that."

"I don't give my companions anything, Mr. Fogg. Are you familiar with the riddle of the goose in the bottle?"

"Can't say I am. I'm from Canarsie. We're not the pinnacles of Renaissance thinking, you know."

"Well, I can't remember exactly where I learnt it—from someone called "Foreman" I believe . . . Anyway, it goes something like this: an old teacher and his pupil are talking about the sorts of things teachers and pupils are likely to talk about. One day, the teacher takes a glass bottle and places a single goose egg inside. Over time, the egg hatches, and the gosling grows and grows and grows until it can no longer move around inside. The poor thing is extremely uncomfortable, and craves more than anything the freedom that looms so close and yet hovers so far away. The pupil asks his teacher what could be done to save the bird, but the teacher forbade his student to tamper with the bottle in any respect."

"Is this going somewhere, Doctor?"

The Doctor huffed, "Yes, in fact, it is. The riddle is this: how do you get the goose out of the bottle, without tampering with the bottle?"

Fogg pursed his lips and ran a hand through his coppery hair. He liked to think of himself as a fairly intelligent guy, by Canarsie standards, but the Doctor's puzzle had him stumped.

"It's impossible," Fogg decided, "if you're not allowed to break the glass, you can't release the goose. You can hardly pull it out through the bottle neck. The only way for the teacher and the pupil to help the poor bastard is to break the glass."

"Ah . . . that's where you're quite mistaken, Mr. Fogg." The Doctor beamed, his eyes twinkling. He whispered as though he were confiding a deep, dark secret, "You free the goose by feeding it."

Fogg scowled. "Feeding it? Doesn't that just make it bigger?"

"Exactly. In time, the goose will learn to intake just the right amount of food in order to develop muscle tone. In time, the goose will apply its newfound strength to the sides of the bottle, and the glass will break under the goose's own force. You see, Mr. Fogg . . . I don't divvy enlightenment and knowledge like bottles of free shampoo at the hotel . . . I give my companions a little push, a little nudge in the right direction, and they find a way to discover that enlightenment, that freedom, on their own. The key is to help people to help themselves.

"And I fear," the Doctor added uneasily, "that this "Mr. Tamers" of yours is trying to use Peri Brown as the food. Trying to force the goose in the bottle to break the glass. Use her to release something entirely unpleasant, the repercussions of which could shake the very fabric of time and space to the core."

"Miss Brown seems pretty important in all this," noted Fogg.

"She is in ways which I don't yet understand . . . which is what's worrying me." The Doctor said firmly, "I have to get to Wardenclyffe Tower."

"That's more than fifty miles up north, Doctor. On Long Island." Fogg pointed out, reasonably enough, "Getting there before Mr. Tamers finds Miss Brown is going to be ever so slightly difficult."

"Very well then, answer me this. Before I and my compatriots arrived here, Peri was doused with a wave of chronon energy . . ."

"What energy?"

"Chronon! It's the temporal-hyperspacial entropic feedback emanating . . . oh, never mind! Anywho, Peri came into contact with this energy and was granted a vision of the distortion at its source. She saw a man: tall, pale, dark hair, blue eyes. And long thumbs. He was electrocuting himself, or someone was forcing him to electrocute himself."

"Electricity, eh?" Fogg snapped his fingers. "I'm not one to follow through on beliefs in dreams and visions and what such nonsense, but the man she saw didn't happen to be Nikola Tesla, did it?"

"So far as I can tell, that's exactly who it was. Peri's description of the incident was dodgy to say the least. And I deeply suspect that the person controlling the chronon radiation source was tampering with her memories of the event at the time."

"Tesla's a big name around these parts." Fogg said, "A few years ago, he came up with this grand scheme to provide cheap electricity to the entire city of New York. He even had Westinghouse and a bunch of other bigwigs in on it. But then Thomas Edison . . . you know Edison, right?"

The Doctor arched his eyebrows. "Oh, I assure you, I do."

"You're telling me. More money than the King of England, that man. Anyway . . . everyone knows Tesla and Edison have a bit of history between them. Back in '90, Edison launched this smear campaign against Tesla's alternating current idea. He and that shifty Brown fella started electrocuting animals, to make AC seem dangerous. Well, it caused quite a stir, let me tell you! Westinghouse was brought to the brink of ruination. I think Tesla had it in his head to lay low for a few years, keep out of Edison's way. He went out west, to Colorado, for a while, but last I heard he was back in New York. But that was months and months ago. Now you come to mention it, nobody's seen hide nor hair of Tesla for ages. He doesn't even come out to feed those pigeons of his—"

"What year is it?"

Fogg stared. "What year . . .? How do you not know what year it is?!"

"I forgot to wind my pocket watch," the Doctor said snidely. "Don't be obtuse . . . what year is it?"

"It's 1903! It's the early morning of the 24th of December, 1903!"

"Christmas Eve. Why does everything bad happen to me on the holidays?" muttered the Doctor. An uneasy, queasy feeling was beginning to build in his belly. "_All sorts of lightning were flashed from the tall tower and poles. The air was filled with blinding streaks of electricity which seemed to shoot off into the darkness on some mysterious errand._"

"What?"

"I was quoting an article written by "The New York Sun" on the 15th of July of this very year. The day the Worldwide Wireless System, known as Wardenclyffe Tower, began full operations."

Fogg's icy eyes widened. "Wardenclyffe. The place you suspected Mr. Tamers was housed."

"The very same. The pieces are beginning to fall into place, Mr. Fogg. We need to get to Shoreham, Long Island. The future of the universe may depend on our actions in the next few hours! Tesla broke the time barrier in 1895, and it seems his mistakes are catching up to him in 1903!"

"Time barrier? You mean . . . that crap Wells wrote in that book of his? Tesla and time travel? You can't seriously expect me to believe that!"

"I don't expect you to believe anything, Mr. Fogg," the Doctor snarled vehemently, "I expect you to follow me, keep your mouth shut, and listen. Take my word for it . . . in fifty years time, every conspiracy theorist from here to Roswell will know about Tesla's meddling with time during his electromagnetic field experiments of 1895! Except they weren't conspiracies," the Doctor informed Fogg gravely, "they were all too real. And all too serious."

Suddenly, the Doctor left the side of his blue police box and dashed down the alley and into the dark. Fogg stared after him, dumbfounded for a second or two, before following at a brisk jog that sent slushy snow flying out from under his feet.

"Doctor!" The detective called out, "Where are you going for Christ's sake?"

"To find a cabbie, Mr. Fogg," answered the Doctor brightly. "We'll ride down to Battery Park and catch the morning ferry at Whitehall to Long Island. I wonder if they'll have holiday discounts on tickets . . ."

"Never mind the damn tickets! What's all this about time travel, and what does it have to do with Tesla and your friend Miss Brown?" Fogg puffed as he sprinted alongside the rotund, but surprisingly athletic Doctor.

"It has everything to do with them! Tesla didn't know it at the time, but he managed to break into the Time Vortex. He gazed, albeit extremely briefly, into the Untempered Schism. That put him on the radar for every time sensitive being from here to Gallifrey."

"Gallifrey? Is that in Ireland?"

"Possibly." The Doctor continued, "It made him a target . . . a target for someone who would seek to subvert the course of human history for sport!"

Fogg took a heaving gulp of air, cursing his unfitness. "And who . . . would that be?"

"The man feeding the goose. The man stoking the fire with petrol."

The Doctor's brows furrowed and his eyes took on a cloudy, sinister light. The mysterious circumstances were starting to make sense—patterns were beginning to emerge. Events were becoming clear to him in ways that would have made him prefer to remain ignorant. The Doctor abhorred the purposeful perversion of time, especially in such an extreme and heinous sense. And he further despised the man who would inevitably be found nestled at the cataclysm's heart.  
A man the Doctor had hoped never to cross paths with again. A man the Doctor had disposed of time and time again and yet still managed to spring back to life, like a twisted parody of a grinning, mocking jack-in-the-box.

Who else would know enough of chronon energy to follow Tesla's time trail to Earth in the early 20th Century? Who else would have the power to destroy entire timelines and rewrite the course of history? Who else would have the hypnotic skill to turn Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest minds of the human race, into an organ grinder's chattering monkey? And who else would have the telepathic skill, and know the mind of Perpugilliam Brown well enough, to shove nightmares and visions directly from the Time Vortex into her head?

"Mr. Tamers, my foot. Ha! He never did put any imagination into his aliases." The Doctor could feel his hackles rising. And he suspected it wasn't from the wintery cold of the New York street.

"You know him, Doctor?" Fogg, the poor devil, gasped laboriously.

"Oh, only too well. That man you call Mr. Tamers, the man who has Nikola Tesla, Wardenclyffe Tower, and now my friend Peri all under his thumb, and is hell-bent on destroying the entire fabric of reality, is none other than my old enemy, the Master!"


	9. Chapter 8: God And The Doctor

_"We build but to tear down. Most of our work and resource is squandered. Our onward march is marked by devastation. Everywhere there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true."_

_— Nikola Tesla, Denver Rocky Mountain News, January 16, 1910 —_

* * *

Peri could feel herself growing hysterical. Her stomach was so queasy she worried about reacquainting herself with the chicken sandwich she'd had aboard the TARDIS who-knows-how-many hours ago. Though Cooper's ghostly carriage was cramped and stuffy, rivulets of cold sweat trickled down her spine and curled into the fabric of her clothes, chilling her to the bone. The stale air seemed to be pressing down upon her, crushing her. Her chest fought against the weight, heaving up and down like a piston engine on the blink. Fearing a nervous breakdown, but stalwartly refusing to show weakness in front of Martin Cooper, Peri forced her thundering heart to slow. She took deep breaths and tried to keep a level head.

Despite her mounting concern, Peri gritted her teeth, choked down her panic, and composed herself. Frobisher needed her, and some weird, disillusioned sense of duty told her that the Doctor needed her, too. In the meantime, as an escape plan tried to drag itself into existence on the boundaries of Peri's mind, Cooper allowed for no delay in their travels. He kept barking orders at the driver to take his two prisoners faster, and faster, and faster.

Peri clamped down on her tongue as the carriage rattled down the broken, crooked streets in a manic dash for the Battery Park harbor at Whitehall. Every time the wheels ricocheted off a large pothole or the horse gave a start at some passing obstruction, the cabin soared three feet in the air and sent Peri and Frobisher's stomachs into their throats.

As his rear made a painful landing back onto his seat, Frobisher let out a startled yelp. Peri gave him a reassuring half-smile, which Frobisher tried to reciprocate in an overambitious effort that morphed his expression into a twisted, rictus grin. She gave him an encouraging pat on the back of his hand, and then went back to starring out the window.

The carriage thundered along at an incredible speed. At the rate at which Peri moved in respect to her surroundings, she could have fooled herself into believing she was gazing out the window of an Amtrak back in Baltimore. The buildings of New York blurred together in wet slashes of drab, subdued greys and browns. The night broke into a black streak across the sky and the under-city fog boiled and frothed before the horse and his burden.

"How are we going so fast?" murmured Peri into the steamy window. She was not aware that she had spoken aloud until Cooper whirled his head from his own window and glowered at her.

"We are traveling through the Passing Strange."

Peri screwed her features together. "The what?"

"In terms you could understand," Cooper snapped disparagingly, "the Passing Strange is a small sub-corridor to the entirety of the Time Vortex. My employer patented the mode of transport, in fact, and marketed it to a small group of thespians living on the planet Europa. The carriage is temporally sensitive, and as the robotic horse picks up speed, the area between the vehicle's relative position and its intended destination shrinks in a direct relationship to the trans-temporal velocity of said vehicle. The distance between here and Wardenclyffe . . ."

"Is smaller on the inside," finished Frobisher. "It is a somewhat whimsical description of an entirely illogical method of travel, but accurate for the targeted audience, nevertheless. I congratulate you on your grasp of Gallifreyan temporal engineering, Mr. Cooper."

Peri's face melted to a sickly shade of grey. Her heart rate skyrocketed again.

_Oh no, not now!_

Frobisher's voice was very quickly acquiring a light British lilt. A light, open, kind, familiar British lilt. The technical gobbledegook, and the utter conviction with which it was spoken, was unmistakable.

"So, you're very well-informed for a 20th Century guy, Mr. Cooper," Peri interjected quickly, hushing Frobisher with a flapping hand.

"Mr. Tamers has control over forces the likes of you couldn't begin to comprehend."

Cooper had mentioned this "Mr. Tamers" guy several times during their trip, and Peri did not like the sound of him one little bit. For the time being, however, she thought it wiser to keep her fears to herself. "But how do you know about all these things? Time travel and that whole kit and kaboodle."

"Mr. Tamers has taken me into his confidence," said Cooper, a touch of pride trickling into his voice like oil on sludgy water. "We share an unspoken agreement on the premise of utilizing our unique areas of expertise for our mutual benefit."

"I wouldn't flatter yourself, Mr. Cooper," Frobisher said drily, rolling his consonants slowly over his tongue in a pensive manner.

"Frob—Doctor. Shut up," hissed Peri through clenched teeth.

Frobisher, the Doctor through and through, paid her absolutely no heed. Typical.

"The Passing Strange is hardly any different from the medium through which our own TARDIS journeys, Peri. It is simply a smaller gateway between one location in space and another. An avant-garde hyperspace, as it were. Though actual time travel in of itself is a smidgen above what anyone in their right minds would be willing to risk, travel through space is a spiff! Crude methodology, but it does possess a certain style. A smidgen of H.G. Wells, a pinch of Douglas Adams."

Cooper's hawkish eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You appear to have regained your confidence, Doctor. Dropped the sniveling simpleton act so soon?"

Frobisher's shoulders twitched. A ripple passed over his features—a flash of incomprehension and a shudder of confusion. His wide, bright eyes dimmed and released their hold on the far distance. Frobisher reached out a shaky hand to steady himself against the rocking interior of the cab, blinking his cornflower eyes rapidly to clear visions of things he did not and could not begin to hope to comprehend: suns and planets, past and future, now and then, good and bad, ships and sealing wax and cabbages and kings. He fixed a frightened stare on Peri, and an unspoken understanding passed between them.

"Dropped the act? You could say that, I guess." Frobisher attempted to maintain the fading accent characteristic of the fifth Doctor. "That's me: always changing faces."

Frobisher went very quiet, but the desperate way in which he grasped his chest, probing for double heartbeats, told Peri that the essence of the Doctor's soul was still trying to break through the veil and into the vessel of the Whifferdill's mesomorphic form. Peri thought it was very cruel; Frobisher was the kindest, most incorrigibly sarcastic of people. He was snarky and wisecracking. He was funny, and always laughing. He was a veritable dispenser of sparkling repartee. Now . . . his sullenness and his worry seemed wrong somehow, a square peg in a round hole. It frightened her.

Suddenly, beyond the walls of the carriage, like a barrage of fireworks on New Year's Day, light exploded out of the shadows. Comet streaks of color whizzed by the carriage, hurtling past their windows and into the unfathomable stretches of darkness spreading from the cantering stallion's hooves. Peri's eyes widened as the monotonic blurs of Upper Manhattan exploded into a dizzying phantasmagoria of sensory incomprehension. The Passing Strange reared up and took hold of Cooper's carriage in full force, luring it into the incomprehensible color and spectacle of the temporal portal, ensnaring it in a patchwork of infinitesimal moments of future and past. Peri felt that chicken sandwich coming up again and wisely focused her sights elsewhere. She was more than willing to keep the mysteries of the Time Vortex and the Passing Strange mysteries for the time being. The air in the carriage was as cold as a New York winter, and to Peri's relief, the steamy breath of its passengers soon obscured the raw, polychromatic vista of the Passing Strange.

"Passing Strange . . . It's well named," muttered Peri to herself, her words just loud enough for Cooper to hear. He shot her a glare and then continued to focus on the ship's maneuvering through rippling maw of the vortex.

"That's not the only thing strange right now, Peri." Frobisher had composed himself somewhat, and a creeping note of sarcastic ribbing had riddled its way back into his voice. "He's getting stronger."

"Who, Cooper?" Peri mouthed back, knowing full well who Frobisher meant but trying to fool herself into thinking otherwise.

Frobisher gazed heavenward, and whispered through the corner of barely parted lips, "The Doc. The other Doc. He's coming back. He's trying desperately to take control."

"But he's dead."

"You think I don't know that?!" hissed Frobisher. "This flummery we've gotten ourselves into is doing something crazy to my shapeshifting form. We're in a sort of Time Vortex, a passage to other times and places, dead places . . . and perhaps the old Doc has decided that he doesn't want to stay quite so dead, after all."

"But he wouldn't do that!" protested Peri. "Even if he could transfer himself from whatever weird state he's in back into your body, he wouldn't throw away your life like that! Not him. Not the Doctor."

"Think about it for a sec, Peri. If you were dead, and knew about it, and felt it, alone in the silence and the darkness, wouldn't you want to come back, too? At any cost?"

Peri was about to snap a rebuttal, but something made her pause and hold her tongue. She went silent, her mouth parted in a thin slit to form words that never came forth.

During the early days, during the hours immediately following the hell in the caves of Androzani, Peri had thought a lot about death, and about the possible continuity of the soul beyond the weight of the mortal coil. How could she not, when she spent her days starring a ghost in the face. The Doctor had changed—changed in temperament as well as appearance. But his sudden shift from youthful adventurer to brash, pendular meddler intent on making her life miserable had gotten her to wondering if a presence, an echo of the Doctor's other self, still drifted amongst the endless expanses of nothingness, out of time and out of space, in a realm even the TARDIS daren't venture. Was death the final, undiscovered country for the Doctor? Or was it his own Passing Strange to the Time Vortex? Did the lost parts of the Doctor's soul while away their shadow existences at lonely bus stops, waiting for rides that would never come, dreaming of an escape as meaningless and untouchable as a shadow in the dead of night?

Could being kept on the brink of an impossible hope drive a person to the outermost limits of desperation? Would the Doctor of days past destroy Frobisher, snuff out a life in the blink of an eye, simply to exist in the physical world again?

But an hour ago, Peri would never have considered the possibility. Granted, the Doctor was rude and bombastic, his moue irritating to the extreme, but he was a White Knight on the cosmic chessboard. He was a good man.

But darkness and the poverty of being all alone had the power to corrupt even the brightest of souls—Peri had seen that for herself. She thought back to the man in the room, the man from her dreams—Nikola Tesla—and knew how much loneliness could wrench a person apart, slice them into ribbons, and turn hope into as meaningless a parody as the Passing Strange. Peri thought she bordered on the truth, on an answer to Frobisher's question . . . but as to the extent of her long-dead friend's desperation for freedom, for release . . . only God and the Doctor knew . . .

A jolt of the carriage brought Peri's whirling philosophical quandary to a grinding halt. She and Frobisher were flung against the far wall of the cabin until their faces were pressed against the biting chill of the steamy glass. A bolt of nether-lightning and an ear splitting crack of ghost-thunder lashed across the infinite space of the Passing Strange, swinging the carriage awkwardly in its path like one of Feynman's quantum trajectories.

"What the hell's going on?" demanded Peri, her voice going shrill.

Placing Cooper's expression was like reading an Ouija board. "Turbulence."

"You don't say?" remarked Frobisher in mock surprise.

Cooper's steely countenance hardened to the consistency of granite. He turned all of his attention to directing the carriage through the bumps and lumps of the vortex, but snapped hurriedly, "There is interference in our flight path potential."

Peri parroted, "Potential? As in potential energy?"

"The Passing Strange operates on a basis of infinite probability, Peri. Think _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_." Frobisher lectured primly, "we exist in an infinite number of potential moments which may or may not be the time and place we are hoping to reach. The location that exists in a state of temporal equilibrium will be our final destin—Peri! He's coming back! Stronger this time!"

Cooper was not so oblivious a second time. "Who's coming? What's he taking about?"

"Nothing!" Peri said hurriedly, "Just a knock on the head!"

Cooper knew a lie when he heard one, and he sneered, "Some expert marksmen are able to shoot a passenger through the moving window on a train whilst standing idly on the platform. This turbulence wouldn't affect my aim a great deal, Miss Brown. And in any case, the way I see it . . ." Suddenly the Colt Peacemaker was in his hand, his fingers caressing the engraved wood. "It'd be very hard to miss someone at this range. Very hard."

Peri swallowed an involuntary gulp. If she had a penny for every time she'd been threatened today . . .

"Well, Miss Brown?"

"No, really. It's just a headache. Brain freeze. Too much ice cream in my diet," Frobisher, his old self again, tried to reassure Cooper.

"If you're sabotaging the carriage in any way, Doctor . . ."

"Why would I want to do that?" Frobisher pointed out carefully, "If I mess with this gadget, I place my companion's life in jeopardy."

It was a very Doctor-like thing to say, and Peri allowed herself a sigh of relief.

It was short-lived for the fact that the carriage began to wobble at a thirty degree angle, screeching through the medium on the two left wheels alone. Peri yelped in alarm, but somehow, someway, the cab righted itself with a garbled command from Martin Cooper.

"It's getting worse!" she shrieked, rather unhelpfully.

"Time distortion," Frobisher breathed, "the void is collapsing in on itself. The nether-space of the Time Vortex is being crushed together like a ginger beer can."

"Frobisher, no!" Peri whispered urgently, "That's not you talking!"

She was beginning to realize that keeping the Whifferdill in thrall of an unprotected time schism was steadily weakening his defenses against temporal incursion. Whereas Peri had had visions and premonitions stuffed into her head, undoubtably by Nikola Tesla and that Mr. Tamers guy of Cooper's, Frobisher was having an entire personality shoved into his head! He was a link between the waking world and the unconscious temporal construct storing the Doctor's past selves. If Peri couldn't hold off a simple telepathic instant message, then how in hell would Frobisher hold off an attack on both his body, and his soul?

They had to get out of the Passing Strange.

Now.

"Stop the cab!"

Cooper's glared daggers at her. "I beg your pardon?"

"We've got to get out of here! Please!"

"We will leave the confines of the Passing Strange when I command it, and no sooner!"

"Something terrible is happening," insisted Peri. "Don't you see what you're doing? You're messing with the entire timeline of Earth! You're going to help your Mr. Tamers destroy the universe, you idiot!"

Cooper curled his hand into a fist, launching his arm back as if to strike her. Peri flinched, but the blow never came.

As suddenly as it began, the turbulence battering the carriage died to a barely discernible rumble. The multicolored chaos of the Passing Strange telescoped open like an aperture to reveal a landscape of wind-swept hillocks and a massive expanse of icy blue water dominating the horizon beyond. The sky was a titanium grey and the winter cold blasted unforgivingly against the sides of the cab. The windows cracked with tiny crystalline latices of ice. Peri felt her teeth beginning to chatter, and hugged her shoulders to keep them from shivering. She breathed in, and the taste of something heavy and tangy alighted upon her tongue. She sniffed, and recoiled at the smell of dead fish and salt water.

Cooper smiled his baneful smile, a thin red slash across his solid features, and gave a mocking bow to Peri as he gestured for her to exit.

"It's Christmas Eve morning, 1903. Welcome to Shoreham, Long Island. Welcome to Wardenclyffe Tower."


	10. Chapter 9: A Masterful Gambit

_"It is a simple feat of scientific electrical engineering — only expensive — blind, faint-hearted, doubting world."_

_ — Nikola Tesla, Electrical World and Engineer, January 7, 1905 —_

* * *

Despite Martin Cooper's enthused introduction, Peri did not feel particularly overwhelmed. In fact, her nervous anticipation sputtered out when faced with the looming mass of the transmitter tower. Her expectations of a secret lair nestled at the foot of a Passing Strange time tunnel were sorely disappointed. Wardenclyffe held no more fascination than an abandoned water tower.

The structure was swathed in the early morning fog, blanketed in a white veil that shrouded the hillside and fell in cascading waves to the icy, boiling froths of Long Island Sound. The tip of the Shoreham peninsula, jutting out and over the water, was devoid of human life and sound. The lone track of ambience consisted of nought but the crashing of the waves, the screams of the gulls, and the chilled wind meandering its way between the frosty blades of yellowed, dead grass. The only obstruction, dominating the hillside vista, was Wardenclyffe Tower itself, a monstrous stone cairn gazing forlornly over the cliffs and out to sea. The immense building was topped by a tangled dodecahedron of interconnected antenna and transmitters. The tangled ball of cabling soared to the roof of the steel grey sky. Though the transmitters were lifeless and glassy in the crystalline Christmas Eve morning, Peri could just discern tendrils of black scorch marks winding from the roof of the tower to the highest of the antenna poles.

Wardenclyffe Tower had been in business recently.

An uncomfortable feeling of suspense settled over Peri's chilled shoulders, as if the entire hillside were waiting for some unspoken terror to cover the island like the fog from the Sound.

Peri shivered. Frobisher shivered, too.

The biting air had hit Frobisher's senses like a punch in the face, smacking the cobwebs and other Time Lord debris well away. Out of the inhibiting fog of the Passing Strange, he was thinking clearly for the first time in hours. His mesomorphic form was stable for the moment, which allowed him to turn his considerable concern for himself to Peri and their predicament.

As Frobisher began to formulate a plan of escape, Martin Cooper held him and Peri at gunpoint and marched them towards the looming mass of Wardenclyffe Tower. Once locked inside the veritable fortress of a structure, trapped between firm stone walls and the depths of Long Island Sound, Frobisher reckoned their chances of escape were slim and none. If he and Peri were going to make a break away, they would have to do it before cheerlessly lodged at the Tower.  
The mysterious cab and its ghostly driver made their way back into the nether-space of the Passing Strange. Cooper was armed, but he was alone. It was Frobisher and Peri against one man.

"Oh, Perpugilliam," Frobisher said brightly, breaking the heavy silence, "do you remember that time we visited Troy?"

Peri starred at him. "Uh . . . we've never visited Troy."

Frobisher sighed and said sweetly, "Oh yes we did, you silly girl."

Peri's stare very quickly morphed into a scowl.

_This had better be going somewhere or Frobisher is about to get a very generous piece of my mind._

"We visited them during the invasion of the Archaens, remember?"

Peri did not have a clue what Frobisher was playing at, but she went along with it, eyeing Cooper warily. "Oh yeah! Now I remember! How could I ever forget the . . . erm . . ."

"Trojan Horse, Peri. You liked the Trojan Horse, remember?"

"Yup." Peri affirmed, "Loved it."

Frobisher gave a conspiratorial wink. "You greatly admired the Achaeans' superior powers of _distraction_, didn't you? How they used the horse to fool the Trojans into _letting their guard down_, right?"

Peri could have slapped herself. She returned Frobisher's wink with a half smirk. "Oh yeah. Those Achaeans were wily ones all right. We can only live in hope of recreating their genius, Doctor."

"Oh yes."

"Positively absolutely."

"Most defi—"

"If I enjoyed listening to a running commentary from my targets, I wouldn't have become a paid assassin, now would I?" Cooper snapped, "Shut up and keep moving."

"Erm . . . I don't think I can," protested Peri with the utmost seriousness. "I suddenly feel very queasy. My head is swimming . . ."

"It'll be swimming all right if the pair of you don't shut your mouths! Swimming in Long Island Sound!"

Frobisher tried his very best to sound angry. "What would you know about it, hmm? Ever since experiencing those visions onboard the TARDIS, Peri has been prone to bouts of dizziness and even waves of unconsciousness. The experience really rattled her!"

_Not so far from the truth, then,_ thought Peri.

Frobisher glanced her way, and she took her cue. Peri fluttered her eyelids and swooned. She stretched her arms out as if to steady herself. Something not dissimilar to alarm flashed across Cooper's concrete brow, and he made a diving lunge to catch Peri's falling body. His fear of her getting damaged overpowered his caution.

As Cooper leant to catch Peri, he lowered his gun and left his neck and back exposed. Frobisher flexed his right hand into a knifehand strike and slammed it against the top of Cooper's spinal column, crushing the knob of bone jutting into his veinous neck. The Venusian aikido attack was an old favorite of the Doctor's third self. The Time Lord had tidally dispatched many a foe with his specialized fighting techniques, and enough of the Doctor was left in Frobisher's mind for him to know how to use them.

Cooper cried out in shock as the muscles running from his spinal cord all the way to his occipital bone sparked with electrical fizzes of pain. His trapezius muscle knotted into a useless lump and his limbs seized up. His entire body shuddered and then went numb with paralysis. Frobisher gave Cooper's stiff backside a good kick that sent the assassin sprawling into the frosty grass, knocking Peri over in the process and trapping her under Cooper's contorted arms and legs.

"That's some part of the Doctor coming out all right!" exclaimed Peri breathlessly, allowing a note of awe to wiggle its way into her retort. "I'm just not sure I want to know which part!"

"It's called Venusian aikido," Frobisher informed her. "Don't ask me how I know that, because I haven't got a blind clue. Come on, let's make like trees and leave before our little Spetsnaz here recovers."

Peri was in no mood to argue. "Let's just see if I can dig myself out from underneath him, first."

As Peri tried to extradite herself from Cooper's enervate limbs, the assassin gave a bestial snarl and forced his paralyzed fingers to snag the ankle of her boot. Peri screamed as she lost her balance and tumbled face-first onto the grass. Ignoring the sting of the ice on her cheeks, she scrabbled forward on her elbows and tried to gain some purchase on the frost-bitten ground. As she struggled, she stabbed the heel of her shoe into what she hoped was Cooper's face. His red-hot fury and frustration were immeasurable. Peri could not break free, and his lips pulled back into a rictus grin of defiance as he kept his paralyzed fingers clamped around her ankle.

"Frobisher, help me!" shrieked Peri.

"Grab my hands!"

Frobisher latched onto Peri's wrists and tried to pull her free of Cooper's superhuman grip.

"Let. Me. GO!"

Peri gave her attacker a good, hard kick on the bridge of his nose. There was a sickening crack, and blood exploded from Cooper's nostrils.

"Not . . . today . . . you bitch," he hissed through the coagulated trails of blood dripping into his mouth.

"Let GO!" Peri rolled onto her back, and Cooper's rigor mortis fingers finally slid free as they were squashed under her legs.

Peri was running before she had even regained her footing. She snatched the sleeve of Frobisher's coat and the two of them sprinted across the windblown heather of the hillside, away from the seaside cliffs and from Martin Cooper.

They had made it barely a hundred yards before a tiny projectile shrieked past Peri's ear. A second embedded itself in a snow-covered knoll not two feet to her right.

"Frobisher, he's shooting at us!" screamed Peri as a steady rain of bullets began to blanket the dirt at her feet.

"Really!?" Frobisher exclaimed with deadpan snark, "I hadn't noticed!"

Cooper cursed the two escapees to the deepest, darkest pits of Hell as feeling started to flood back into his paralyzed limbs. As soon as the pins and needles faded from his extremities, his Colt Peacemaker was in his hand and he was taking shots at the two shadowy figures meandering through the fog. His first few rounds spattered the ground at their feet or went whizzing past their heads. Cooper swore vehemently as he fumbled awkwardly with the catch and trigger of his gun. He wrung his hands, trying to shake away the last tingles of numbness. The bitch had broken his nose; the swelling below his eyes and the blood clouded his vision and obscured his aim.

_When Mr. Tamers was done with her . . ._

The thought made Cooper's lips curl into a wicked smile. Comforted in some small, sadistic measure with the knowledge that Miss Brown would soon receive her just deserts, he set off in pursuit his prisoners.

Peri and Frobisher were steadily tiring, but the thought of Martin Cooper right on their heels drove them to the extreme limits of physical endurance. Chests heaving, legs screaming in protest, the two companions ran for their lives, deeper and deeper into the opaque mass of fog surrounding Wardenclyffe Tower.  
They were so focused on avoiding the hostile force trailing their footsteps that they did not give much thought to the possibility of a hostile force ahead of them, laying hidden and untraceable in the fog.

"Oh dear, Miss Brown. Leaving us so soon?"

Peri yelped as a shadow loomed in her path, materializing out of the wall of white. She skidded to a sudden halt. Frobisher's own cry of alarm was cut short as he barreled right into Peri's back. The collision sent the two of them tumbling head over heels into the heather. Disorientated, Peri and Frobisher could only gaze dizzily into the absolute whitewash of the Long Island fog, searching for the source of the voice.

There was a dry, cruel chuckle from above. "Graceful as always, Miss Brown."

"Great," muttered Frobisher from underneath Peri's elbow. "What have we tumbled, no pun intended, into now?"

"No . . . this isn't possible." Peri's skin pimpled. There was ice in her words as she faced the shadow in the fog. "We left you with the Rani. You were trapped in her TARDIS, with a rapidly growing embryo T-Rex, unless I'm much mistaken!"

"I am not so easy to dispose of. As you should well know, Miss Brown. And . . . Doctor!"

Frobisher tried to look a touch more dignified, which wasn't easy when tangled amongst Peri's heavy, ankle-length skirts. He answered primly, trying to bury the Brooklyn accent beneath a Surrey one, "You have me at somewhat of a disadvantage, erm, sir."

"My dear Doctor, I'm surprised at you. Don't you recognize an old friend?"

"You're no "friend" to the Doctor, or to anyone else, for that matter." Peri growled, "Master."

"Though I must express some surprise at seeing you here, Doctor." The Master strolled into view from the cloud bank, nonchalantly stroking his coal-black goatee. He paid Peri no heed as he said, "I believe I gave express orders to the contrary."

"I'm not so easy to dispose of," replied Frobisher, face straight.

The Master bristled. "You should be dead."

"Fortunately, I am still quite alive."

"Not if I have anything to do with it in the next thirty seconds." Martin Cooper elongated like a phantom out of the pea souper. His gun was aimed squarely at Frobisher's sternum, his murderous expression made worse by the rusty blood caking his face.

Even the Master couldn't help but arch an eyebrow at the state of his angry ally. "I see your journey has not been without its incidents, Cooper."  
"My apologies, Master. There were . . . complications."

"So I see; we are one party too many. I expressly ordered the Doctor's destruction. Was even that too difficult for you?"

Cooper was not in the mood, and he barked, "You would be wise not to anger me further, Master, or I'll take your money and the deal will be off. Your powers are formidable, but I'm the one with the gun and the insult to settle."

The Master scoffed, "We both know you don't do my bidding for money, Cooper. The pleasure you take in your . . . duties, cannot be matched by such crude means as monetary gain alone. I can't buy the passion of murder. You crave it in its raw form. You yearn for it. And it is that yearning that will keep you within my service."

"You do not control me."

"No, I do not. Your own passion for killing, for the execution of the perfect, intimate murder, controls you. Which in turn causes me to wonder," the Master rounded on Frobisher, pale eyes blazing, "why you haven't satisfied that sadistic urge of yours and disposed of the Doctor in a suitably horrid fashion."  
Cooper answered, "I was informed that I would be harming the little bi—young lady, if I killed the Doctor."

Peri grimaced. In her mind's eye, she could see the fabric of her little white lie unraveling at the seams. She knew the ruse would not withstand the Master's scrutiny. Judging by Frobisher's pasty pallor, he knew it too.

"Oh? Do tell." The Master fixed his adversary with an amused smirk. "What's the Doctor been up to this time? How does he plan to save himself from the jaws of defeat?"

"Gibberish about a telepathic bridge or what nonesuch connecting Miss Brown's mind to the mind of the Doctor. Emotion sharing, crap like that."

The Master sighed, "And I suppose you took them at their word, did you?"

Cooper would not be mistaken for a fool. He replied calmly, "Naturally. I could not risk the girl coming to harm, as per your own instructions."

The Master fixed a keen eye on Martin Cooper, and said nothing for a while. The human mercenary was uncommonly sharp, as intelligent as they came on such a backwater planet, and anyone's match for guile and ingenuity. He took his job very seriously, to the point of jihadist extremism. Cooper was a zealot for marked killings, for the subtle art of snuffing out a life in ways that would not make the authorities blink twice, in ways that could make the most gruesome homicide look like an unfortunate accident. Cooper could make any member of society disappear off the face of the planet, never to be seen again . . .

The Master and Martin Cooper were of the same religion: an ultimate goal could not be deterred by distractions of morality. It had taken none of the Time Lord's hypnotic suggestion to sway Cooper into accepting a new perspective on the goings and comings of New York City, and by extension, the entire Planet Earth. It had taken even less effort to introduce Cooper, a product of 20th Century customs and culture, to science and technology millennia beyond his comprehension. His comm-watch? Not a single question asked. Francis Pearson's black carriage and the Passing Strange? Barely batted an eyelid. Cooper accepted that there were greater forces at work in the universe, forces beyond human comprehension. Cooper had accepted the incredible information, and had not given a damn.

"Let me do my job," he had said sternly, "in the way I see fit, and you can keep your brave new world. You offer me the opportunity to bring about the ultimate murder, the extermination of time itself. But it will be done cleanly, smoothly, and in the way I see fit. You cannot force the bullet to fly straight."

And Cooper, despite the offers of stasers, AK-47s, a Samurai katana, had kept his Colt Peacemaker.

The Master had admitted a grudging admiration for the assassin, which was why he found himself in a peculiarly forgiving mood over Cooper's foolish blunder.  
"You were not to know better, I suppose." The Time Lord added drily, "In a way, your shooting the Doctor would have detracted from some of the pleasure of killing him myself."

"That's as good a reason as any, I guess," Frobisher admitted quietly.

"But I am being a poor host indeed!" exclaimed the Master, as if noticing the wintry chill for the first time. "Allow me to escort you back to Wardenclyffe. The fog is quite thick this Christmas Eve morning; you could go walking right off the cliffs and not even know it until your skull split against the rocks far below."  
Peri tried not to think of that as a threat.

The Master's eyes glittered like polished beetles. "I have someone for you to meet, Miss Brown. He has been ever so excited to make your acquaintance. One could almost say he was _sparking_ with anticipation."

"We both know who it is you're holding here, torturing here," Frobisher said darkly, ignoring the screaming bad pun, "Nikola Tesla himself."

"The one and only. Dear Mr. Tesla has been enlightened, has had his mind expanded. He has been made aware of the recent developments in the balance of power on this planet."

"What have you done to him?" demanded Peri.

"I am helping him, Miss Brown. Opening his eyes to new possibilities, to new ideas."

"Like what, exactly?"

"That he, Nikola Tesla, is going to destroy the Earth's timelines, and with it, the entire causal nexus of the universe. That he is going to turn reality into a massive paradox of immeasurable power and devastation." The Master's smile was shadowed, enigmatic, and dangerous. "And that you, my dear Perpugilliam, are going to help him."


	11. Chapter 10: We're All Mad Here

_"On more than one occasion you have offended me, but in my qualities both as Christian and philosopher I have always forgiven you and only pitied you for your errors."_

_— Nikola Tesla, The Electrical Engineer, November 24, 1898 —_

* * *

Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg leaned on the handrail of the ferry until his shoulders hung precariously over the frothy depths of New York harbor. The biting cold of the sea air and the tiny droplets of moisture flying from the crests of the waves stung his exposed face. His fingers were as stiff as gardener gloves around his damp cigarette. He watched the disk of the Christmas Eve sun crack open over the horizon and slice through the smoky darkness. Its morning glory did not last long; the golden behemoth was quickly swallowed by the winter fog permeating New York harbor and Long Island Sound. The vista was monochromatic like a photograph, all walks of life bleached away along with the color and the warmth of the hidden morning sun.

Fogg swiveled his head from the bow and gazed off towards the stern, towards Lower Manhattan and the looming mass of Midtown. Adding to the cloud cocktail of the winter morning were the factory smoke stacks and tenement chimneys. They belched greasy clouds that spiraled into stairways to the titanium sky. Fogg raked his pale eyes over the sleeping city, and breathed in the silence. The metropolis was still and grey like a graveyard. The buildings were uncountable and arrayed in rows, ordered by height, like soldiers on parade, or like headstones.

Fogg took a long and grateful drag of his cigarette, sucking the acrid smoke into his lungs, and then blowing it free to join the rest of the clouds on their journeys to heaven. His eyes followed the smoke trail until it was lost amidst the airborne sea of grey. The sight made him surprisingly sad.

"A penny for them, Mr. Fogg?"

The Doctor joined him at the handrail, his mouth creased into a thoughtful frown. At Foggʼs own suggestion, the Time Lord had shed his uncommonly lurid attire and opted instead for a tidy selection of black dress suit and bow tie. The ensemble was a little too formal for the harbor ferry at six in the morning, but Fogg was willing to let the mistake pass. It was obvious to him that the Doctor possessed an insatiable urge to draw attention to himself by any means necessary, and Fogg would much prefer he do it in his formal dinner wear than in what looked like the stitched-up remnants of a circus big top.

"You look a little less conspicuous," noted Fogg.

"Hmph." The Doctor sounded less than impressed as he brushed an imaginary speck of dust off of his midnight lapel. "Despite your protests to the contrary, my other coat is the height of fashion in some circles."

"On Mars, maybe."

"Mars? Mars?! Donʼt be absurd, man . . . everyone and their uncle knows that the Martian Ice Warriors prefer greens and browns to designate rank."

Fogg arched an eyebrow and snorted, "And you would know that, would you?"

"Why ever would I not?"

Fogg laughed hoarsely. "In my experience, Doctor, people spend more of their time in the real world than in an H.G. Wellʼs novel. You throw around words like "Martians" and "space" and "time distortion" as if it were normal for you."

"It _is_ normal for me, Mr. Fogg. And given a few hundred years time, it will be normal for most of mankind."

"Does it ever occur to you that you sound like a raving lunatic?"

"Youʼre the one talking to me, Mr. Fogg. Youʼre the one traveling to Wardenclyffe Tower without so much as an inkling about what you're getting yourself into." The Doctor smirked and added, "Either neither of us is crazy, or we both are. As the Cheshire Cat said, weʼre all mad here."

Fogg could feel his head beginning to spin, but he did not know whether it was due to the Doctorʼs crazed words or the noxious fumes of smoke belching from the ferryʼs engines. He took another long drag of his cigarette, and wrenched his gaze from the impossible man next to him and back to the mundane normality of New York City, shrinking away into the distance like the shredded remnants of his common sense, and, he suspected, his sanity.

"Why am I helping you?" Fogg wondered aloud.

"I would ask you the same thing, Mr. Fogg. The thought has occurred to me a few times since our acquaintance."

"Donʼt bury the question. This is about you, not me!"

"No. This is very much about you," insisted the Doctor, a fierce glitter suddenly in his eyes. "You are who this entire conversation is going to be about. As soon as you revealed yourself to me on that Hudson shoreline, you fell down the rabbit hole. You have surrendered your position of normality. You gave up a life that made some sort of obscure but mundane sense to you, and for what? For me? You donʼt know anything about me! You would not know a time anomaly if one punched you in the face! So why bother?"

"I donʼt know!" Fogg spat back, "I couldnʼt give a damn about your problems; Iʼve got enough of my own! You havenʼt given me a single reason to trust you, and I doubt you could even if you tried!"

"Then why, pray tell, are you still here, hmm? Whatʼs keeping you from finding the nearest telephone and ringing the Master? Iʼm sure heʼd even agree to a collect call, given the circumstances!"

"I donʼt know why I'm still here! I have every right to believe youʼre one sardine short of a school."

"I'll take that as a compliment!"

"So what is it about you, Doctor?" Fogg demanded, firing rapid questions, "Is it a trick? Is it hypnosis? Do you force people, coerce them into trusting you? Is that what youʼve done to Miss Brown? Is that what you do to all of your so-called companions? Is that what you've done to me?"

"I've already told you what I do. I don't know why, I only know who. I offer my companions freedom."

"Freedom from what, exactly? Freedom from the burden of making their own decisions and thinking for themselves? You relieve the pain of realizing their indeterminate destinies by giving them a purpose to fight for!"

"You make me sound like the Master." The Doctorʼs face grew dangerously dark. His full features spoke a silent warning.

"Then, perhaps, you two are more alike than youʼd like to believe."

"We are not alike! We could not be more different!"

"Are you so sure about that?" Fogg seemed to realize he had hit upon a particularly sensitive subject. His tone was calmer, but his words were as hard and sharp as diamond. "Know thine enemy as thou knows thyself. Do not think yourself exempt from the demons of false pretenses, Doctor. What are you, really? Who are you?"

"Iʼm the Doctor."

"Doctor who? Itʼs more than a title. Itʼs a front, like that showman blurb about your travels. Itʼs a cover for something youʼd much rather keep hidden away. It's a white lie to smother a black truth."

"What would you know?" asked the Doctor unkindly.

"Iʼm a Private Eye," retorted Fogg. "Itʼs my _job_ to know. Itʼs my job to keep the laws of right and wrong straight within my head. It's my job to try to discover the true measure of goodness in this world. Does God Himself only know? And if He does, why wonʼt He ever give me a single damn clue as to what I seem to be doing wrong? Why I can't seem to understand . . .

"Growing up in Canarsie, I saw a lot of horrible things. I heard and felt a lot of horrible things. My father drank a lot. My mother got the brunt end of his abuse, and when heʼd finished with her, heʼd settle for me. She . . . died of chest sickness and fever when I was young."

"You're lying." The Doctor read the signs on his associate's face, and he said dangerously, "You do not want to lie to me, Mr. Fogg."

A few eternal moments of silence slid past. Fogg's expression was inscrutable when he eventually admitted, "If it really is your job to know every nuance of my personal affairs, Doctor, then know that my mother, Monica Porter, was murdered."

The Doctor looked taken aback. "I'm very sorry."

"That's not the worst of it. She was murdered by my older brother."

"Your brother?!"

"Yes. Dagon Fogg murdered Monica Porter for unpaid debts to some powerful people. My family was screwed up from the start. I grew up without someone to trust, but I turned that fear and uncertainty into a desire, a goal. I matured through my determination to expand my trust to others when I had the power to do so. I couldn't join the police force, I wasn't strong enough. I became a Private Eye because I did not want people to live without trust in a world that was starved of it enough as it was. But do you know what I learned real quick? New York City has a habit of ramming it down your throat in the brutalist possible way, but I soon realized that the world has a lot more mistrust than one little kid from Canarsie can comprehend. If I thought my father was bad, I didn't have a clue. Not a damn clue.

"I didn't trust Mr. Tamers, or the Master, or whatever the hell his name is. But you can judge a man by the quality of his enemies, you you can judge an enemy by the quality of his own enemies. The way I figured it, if Mr. Tamers was willing to kill you just to get his mitts on Miss Brown, then you must be one hell of a better man than he is. So . . . I've decided to trust you, to help you, because I haven't got a choice. I'm trusting you to convince myself that whatever misplaced sense of morality I've developed over the years since Canarsie isn't all just brick dust and Hudson sludge. I'm trusting you because I want to believe I'm not a product of the times, that I'm a good man.

"That's the best you're going to get from me, Doctor. If it isn't enough for you, I can catch the return ferry back to Whitehall Station, and you can take your chances in Shoreham without my help. You can go on believing in that false pretense of yours, and keep your demons locked away forever, like I almost did."  
Fogg broke from his soliloquizing, smudged the butt of his cigarette on the handrail, and watched forlornly as the ashes spiraled down into the harbor. He didn't meet the Doctor's eyes, but contented himself with feeling the Time Lord's brooding stare on the back of his head. He had finally rattled the mysterious stranger, finally put a bit of consideration into that curly-haired head of his.

"'The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is,'" murmured the Doctor, his voice fading into the wind, his thoughts a million miles away.

His words did not escape Fogg's keen hearing. "Sentiment. It's nice, but it's still sentiment."

"Sentiment and emotion are not the antithesis of truth. And this particular sentiment was composed by a better man, a more truthful man, than I could ever hope to be," the Doctor replied vaguely.

Fogg took the tip of his ciggy in two nicotine-stained fingers, and held it out to the Time Lord. He asked, "Care for a smoke?"  
"No thanks. I gave it up five or six lifetimes ago."

Nodding uncomprehendingly at what he thought was a figure of speech, Fogg turned until his back rested against the rail and faced the Doctor. His pale eyes seemed empty and colorless in the smoky morning light.

"Why do they need Miss Brown, Doctor? Why is she so important?"

"I wish I knew," he said sadly. "At first I thought it may have been a case of mistaken identity, us getting penned up in the petty power plays of the century like we always seem to do. Peri once got mistaken for Queen Anne when we visited the era of de Médicis's France. But now . . ."

"With that old enemy of yours, the Master, involved," Fogg finished, "you think there may be something more going on."

"Think? I'm fairly certain! The Master is a fiend that glories in chaos and darkness, an abhorrent abomination of a man hell-bent on bringing about my destruction and, inevitably, the destruction of the entire cosmos! I have crossed swords with him, quite literally, on more occasions than I care to remember! The reason for him being penned up at Wardenclyffe Tower during a vital turning point of 20th Century science and politics cannot be a pleasant one."

"And Miss Brown?"

"Peri and the Master have no love lost between them. The fact that he has dismissed my life so trivially in favor of hers is very disconcerting."

"At least she's alive."

"Do we know that, Mr. Fogg?"

"Yes." Fogg affirmed, "Mr. Tamers gave express orders that she not be harmed. No man in his right mind would dare cross him on that account. She's at Wardenclyffe, and she's alive. Of that, at least, I'm sure."

"But what sort of life has her's become? And what about Frobisher? He was disguised as me when we were separated! If one of the Master's men got to them first . . ."

The Doctor left his fears unspoken. The quiver of emotion in his voice told Fogg enough.

"You care about them a lot, don't you?"

The Doctor's voice was low and melancholy when he murmured, "Immeasurably."

A few minutes passed during which neither of them spoke, unable to find the right words. Fogg opened his mouth more than once to say something positive and uplifting, but his heart simply was not into it. The Doctor needed another fallacy like he needed another pair of bumblebee-striped pants. Truth certainly was harsh, but at least it was the truth. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but there it is, nevertheless.

"Look, Doctor," Fogg broke the serenity with his husky brogue, "we need to start coming up with a plan for getting past Mr. Tamers's goons. Do you know of any—"

Suddenly, a jolt from below the harbor waters rocked the boat like a child's toy in a bathtub. The ferry lurched to starboard and threw the Doctor and Fogg across the deck and against the opposite handrail. Their teeth ground against their jaws as vibrations in the water shook the struggling vessel to its core. There was a proliferation of terse swearing, and ferrymen began to dash down into the belly of the ship to check the engines. Unhealthy black clouds billowed from the smoke stacks above the cabin.

"What was that?!" exclaimed Fogg above the metallic screech of a force pressing hard against the riveted steel sheets on the port side.

The Doctor had gone very quiet which, in of itself, was enough to scare the living daylights out of Fogg.

"I have a very nasty feeling about this," whispered the Doctor. Ever so carefully, he crawled forward on his elbows, and peered under the rail and into the grey, frothing depths of New York harbor.

The water boiled. Underneath the cresting heads of small waves, a nameless horror swam amongst the dark depths, a shadow enveloped in shadow. The creature circled the ship and whipped it with a huge appendage, testing it and playing with it—the cat teasing the mouse.

"What . . . in Hell's name . . . is that thing?" Fogg managed through clenched teeth.

"Funny you should ask." The Doctor had his suspicions, but they were too ghastly to contemplate.

Then, just as suddenly as the phantasmic behemoth had appeared, it vanished into the inky gloom.

The ship's engines let out a wrenching squeal as they finally gave up the ghost, and the water settled until it was as still and featureless as frosted glass. Barely a ripple alighted upon the surface. There was nobody in sight, nor any boat close by except those still docked in the Whitehall station at least a mile off the stern, back towards the foreboding mass of New York. The wind stopped. The morning air went quiet, and the world grew very still . . .

A terrible groan, like pain and terror and nightmares, resounded through the body of the ferry. The Doctor and Fogg felt their bones rattle under their goose-pimpled skin, chilled by the morning air and the inescapable fear at what lurked in the water.

"Oh no," the Doctor muttered enigmatically, "not again."

The harbor suddenly erupted in six foot waves as a massive reptilian head broke the pristine surface. Fogg did not doubt that the image of the monstrosity rising from the water would haunt him to his dying day. Which, unfortunately, suddenly seemed very near.

The beast's head was at least ten feet long, with hundreds of teeth jammed into its massive, red mouth. The gnashing canines and incisors resembled swords more than actual teeth. Its scaly hide was mottled and green like moldy bread, and its heaving carcass reeked of dead fish and rotten meat. It's eyes were glassy with a thin sheen of waterproofed mucus, but the hunger and the hate burned a brilliant orange. It eyed the minuscule ferry with an expression not unlike amusement and disdain. The creature launched itself back into the water and straight for the helpless vessel.

"Doctor, if I ever needed a moment to trust someone . . ." Fogg's voice had gone squeaky with terror.

The Doctor, in contrast, sounded almost reverent. "It's a Kronosaurus! These haven't been seen since the Early Cretaceous Period!"

"A WHAT?!"

"A short-necked pliosaur, Fogg, and one of the most devastating predators that ever lived! What a remarkable creature!"

"REMARKABLE?!" Fogg thundered incredulously, "I don't care if it's the Second Coming, Doctor, that THING is going to kill us!"

"Most likely."

"You have a plan then?"

"Erm . . . turn the ferry around?"

"The engines are dead."

"Then . . . no."

They were catapulted into the air and clear across the deck as the massive creature head-butted the port side. The ferry shrieked in protest; the horrible screams of terrified men could be heard from below deck, adding to the mayhem. The Kronosaur's huge jaws and machete-sized teeth ripped and tore under the surface of the water as she tried to gain a purchase on the metal underbelly of the boat. The machine gun pop of rivets was overpowered only by the rush of incoming water. It wasn't long before the boat began to list.

"A creature out of time," pondered the Doctor, seemingly oblivious to their predicament. "There are cracks in the fabric of reality, and now the monsters are leaking through. The Kronosaurus breached the Time Vortex. No wonder she's in a sour mood."

"The Time Vortex, whatever the hell that is, isn't the only damn thing that monster has breached." Fogg informed him angrily, "We're sinking."

The Doctor was standing at a fifteen degree angle to the deck. "So we are."

"You're the one with all the ideas! What do we do?"

The Doctor's face was stony and grim. His voice was hollow when he said,

"To tell the complete and utter truth, I haven't the foggiest."


	12. Chapter 11: Dead In The Water

_"I was oppressed by thoughts of pain in life and death and religious fear. I was swayed by superstitious belief and lived in constant dread of the spirit of evil, of ghosts, and ogres and other unholy monsters of the dark." _

_— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

The Kronosaur's synaptic patterns amounted to nothing remarkable. Barely a wandering thought stirred in the smoky depths of her subconscious, other than, of course, the fiery urge to stay alive. Bestial instinct dominated over cautious reserve. The Kronosaurus knew nothing of hesitation, knew nothing of doubt, knew nothing of the abstract concept of fear. Such emotions were utterly alien to her simple mind. Such emotions, even if they had existed at all as a minute spark in the subconscious, had long since been repressed by her predatory savagery and her dominating survival instinct. The Kronosaurus was a killer; such facets of her being were apparent in the writhing, sinewy muscle of her body, the jagged edges of her teeth, the empty light in her eyes, and the murky depths of her soul, untouched by the light of mercy.

Her mind was simple, and her drive absolute. The drive to rip and tear and destroy, to consume. To feed.

The unfamiliar prey, floating unprotected within the scope of the Kronosaur's senses, fed its hunting fire like petrol. She did not know what the object was, nor could she have tried to understand it even if she were so inclined. All she was capable of comprehending was the object's blatant presence within the snapping radius of her massive jaws.

When the Kronosaurus attacked and latched onto the helpless body with ripping teeth, her prey roared like an animal in pain. But it cried unlike any animal the Kronosaurus recognized. It cracked like a turtle's shell, but the texture was more like ocean-worn rock than bone. It did not bite back like a smaller plesiosaur, it didn't writhe and buck like a shark. The prey was still and stiff, but it screeched, yowled, and snarled in defense.

The Kronosaurus clamped her jaw tight as instinct had tempered her to. She rolled in the water, attempting to tear chunks out of her prey through brute force.  
The prey did not fight back, but a flash of something not unlike alarm began to ripple through the Kronosaur's stagnant subconscious as her grabble dragged on. Over the passing minutes, she found it more difficult to find the strength necessary to keep the squealing mass locked between her jaws. Her huge chest heaved, her thick tail swished back and forth with ever decreasing vigor. Her muscles began to tighten and cramp. Her pectoral girdle began to ache, as if an immense weight were crushing her diaphragm.

A flicker of a thought wandered in the black abyss of the Kronosaur's mind. For the briefest of moments, she could not understand what was happening to her, why her hunter's physique was betraying her. Suddenly, she found that she was unable to pilot herself to the surface of the water and draw a desperate breath of air.

The savage Kronosaurus, apex predator, scourge of the prehistoric oceans, was afraid.

The emotion was quickly snuffed out as a heavy darkness descended over her mind. Her chest gave a final shriek of protest, and her useless limbs gesticulated for the last time. With a remarkably serene expression of acceptance, of rest, plastered across her brutal features, the Kronosaurus died. She went quietly, her massive body sinking gracefully into the murky oblivion of New York Harbor until it was lost in the gloom. She left behind nothing but a trail of silvery bubbles.

* * *

The ferry gave a weak shudder, and then the assault stopped as quickly as it had begun. Fogg dared to crack open an eyelid, but kept his hands clasped tightly around the handrail until his knuckles were as white as alabaster. Throwing caution and his better sense into the wind, allowing his investigative curiosity to get the better of him, Fogg peeked over the rail and into the boiling water lapping up against the hull. The monster, a Kronosaurus, the Doctor called it, had simply vanished. The only indication of movement was a light trickle of bubbles spiraling into the darkness.

"It's playing with us, isn't it? Toying with us," Fogg speculated out loud.

The Doctor gave a small facial shrug. "Unlikely. The Kronosaurus hunts much like a crocodile; there is very little stealth involved after the initial frontal attack. Something must have interrupted her."

Fogg did not comment, but the thought of anything giving that brute pause for thought made him shiver.

"Unless . . ." The Doctor's eyes widened, and his expression turned melancholy. "Oh dear."

"What?"

"How cold is the water, would you say, Mr. Fogg?"

"It's Christmas morning in New York City. I'm sure the water's as toasty as a lukewarm bath," remarked Fogg with heavy sarcasm. "Do you want to stay and test it for yourself? The boat's sinking, so you won't have long to wait."

The Doctor paid his companion's frivolity little notice. He gestured with an outstretched hand to encompass the vast watery stage. "The Kronosaurus frequented the large inland seas surrounding Australia and Colombia during the early half of the Cretaceous Period. The surface temperature of the waters of its habitat must have been over 38 degrees centigrade!"

"Centigrade?"

The Doctor sighed in exasperation, but berated himself for letting the current year slip his mind. The centigrade scale would not be widely used until 1948!  
"A unit of measure, Mr. Fogg. In Fahrenheit . . ." He did a quick mental calculation. "Roughly 100.4 degrees."

Fogg rolled his eyes. "Is this relevant? The water certainly isn't, what . . . 100 something degrees Fahrenheit now! It's damn cold, as we're both bound to find out very soon!"

"The poor creature froze to death," the Doctor said sadly as he gazed down into the watery depths. "She was transported across time and space in an instant from the topical waters of the Cretaceous Period to the sub-zero temperatures of New York Harbor . . . the shock killed her. Imagine how confused, how alone she must have felt in the end. Dying in a time where her own hatchlings are fossils buried away in some dusty museum . . ."

"Doctor, you may have very little regard for your own life, but could you try to remember that I still do? Mourn your jabberwocky all you want as soon as we're on dry land!"

As if to accentuate Fogg's meaning, the ferry listed dangerously to the right, causing both the Doctor and Fogg to stumble. A loud bang echoed from below deck as another sheet of hull plating broke loose under the water pressure.

"You humans are the most terrible of killjoys," grumbled the Doctor. He licked his lips and willed a plan to come to light. "Right. This is a Staten Island Ferry. A Miss New York Class vessel by the name of _Mary Murray_. There should be a lifeboat in the stern."

"That there is. Unfortunately, the stern is currently underwater."

"Oh, pish and tosh." The Doctor smirked. "Are you afraid to get a little wet?"

Fogg scowled. "After you."

"Don't mind if I do." The Doctor pushed Fogg aside and ordered, "Ring the ship's bell. Get everyone aboard to the stern."

Fogg stared at him. "Doctor, we were the only passengers. Nobody is out on Christmas Eve, and the crew all went below deck to secure the engines. Even the helmsman left his post."

The Doctor began to feel a frosty chill climb the back of his neck. For a while, the only sound was the groaning of the ship taking on more and more water. There were no voices, there were no cries from the captain or the crew. A terrible, final silence descended over the deck that sent a shiver rippling through both Fogg and the Doctor.

"If they stayed down there when that monster attacked . . ."

The rest was left unsaid.

"There's no point in searching for them," Fogg assured him gravely, casting a wary eye at the rising level of water. "We have to get off this boat."

The Doctor's face was a mask, emotionless and unbroken. His features were those of a porcelain statue, but his eyes were chips of broken blue glass. Weary, anguished, and filled with regret.

"Let's see to that lifeboat," he murmured so quietly his words were lost on the harbor wind.

As the Doctor and Fogg made their precarious way towards the rear of the vessel, they saw the extent of the damage. They took a moment to glance over the port rail and clap their eyes on the black scar bisecting the hull plating. Columns of fat bubbles, the last few pockets of air from within the bowels of the boat, were streaming from the tear and into the dark harbor waters. The gash, like a bodily injury, had an eerily mesmeric quality to it that fought any attempt to tear one's eyes away. Fogg stood transfixed, hypnotized by the conical teeth marks and scratches framing the gaping wound in the metal. The Doctor, however, stolidly ignored the damage and turned his focus to their only means of egress.

As he rounded the edge of the passenger berth to face the stern, he cursed. The backend of the vessel was rapidly delving under the rising water. The winches needed to release the small lifeboat from the shackles of its davit surfaced just above the lip of the waves. The current was strong, and the surf rough. A careless move could wash the Doctor overboard and into the frigid water. Though he possessed an unnatural immunity to extremely low temperatures, he did not much fancy his chances of surviving in water cold enough to sink a Kronosaurus in a matter of minutes.

Bracing himself against the icy handrail, the Doctor inched towards the davits. His spats sank under the water and he had to bite his tongue against a yelp of pain. Wincing, he slowly shuffled forward until the water lapped up against his shins. The Doctor placed a hand on the release mechanism. To his dismay, the gear was frosted with ice, and would not budge.

"Fogg!" The Doctor bellowed, "The winches are iced tight!"

The erstwhile detective broke his gaze from the sliced-up hull and dashed around the corner of the passenger berths. Incredibly, he skidded to a halt with a loaded firearm in his hand, pointed directly at the Doctor's head!

The Time Lord gaped. "What the devil do you think you're doing?!"

"Saving our lives! Get out of the way!"

The Doctor did not give himself time to argue, and scarpered out of firing range as Fogg let loose a couple of shots from his Colt 32. The bullets zoomed a few inches above the Doctor's halo of curly hair and exploded against the icy davit supports. The small but fast projectiles chipped away at the wood beams until they snapped. After a successive round of bullets, the ropes lashing the boat to the davits gave out entirely. With a splash, the lifeboat tilted over sideways and fell the short distance into the shallow water lapping over the edge of the stern.

"I don't condone the use of firearms." The Doctor admitted gruffly, "But this one instance will be an obvious exception. Quickly! Jump in before our chariot floats away!"

Giving crowning testament to his snaky, unfit physique, Fogg leapt awkwardly over the water and landed face-first in the lifeboat, his feet still dangling in the frigid surf.

"Shit, this water is cold!" Fogg swore through chattering teeth. He could feel his toes growing numb through his threadbare socks and cracked shoes.

"Said Leonardo DiCaprio when the Titanic sank."

The Doctor did himself credit by being a lot more graceful than Inspector Fogg, bounding almost effortlessly into one of the two seats perpendicular to a large pair of oars. The momentum of his landing pushed the lifeboat out over the stern and into open water, clear of the sinking ferry.

"Really stuck the landing, Mr. Fogg." The Doctor smirked as he hauled the man into the boat by the shoulder of his jacket.

"A 'thank you for saving my ass' would be most welcome," grumbled Fogg, trying to muster what little dignity he had left.

Both fell silent as the small Staten Island ferry plunged under the surface of the water, which almost immediately began to frost over with a thick sheen of grey ice. The whirlpool left by the bulk of the sinking vessel was soon swallowed by the merciless water. Soon, Fogg and the Doctor were alone in the middle of New York Harbor.

"We have nobody to thank for anything." Suddenly the Doctor was deadly serious, his expression as dire as their predicament. "People have died this morning, and we are no closer to reaching Wardenclyffe or my companions."

"Don't tell me: that THING was somehow tied to whatever the hell's been happening up in Shoreham."

"Indubitably! Funny things tend to happen around the epicenter of a time distortion. It's like splashing a bucket of water onto a wet painting, suddenly all of the colors begin to blur together. The fabric of reality is splintering, cracks are emerging that are allowing the past and the future to merge with the present, causing one moment to leak through into the next. The Kronosaurus was just the start. Who knows what manner of creature from Earth's timeline will appear next . . ."

Fogg did not want to admit his ignorance or the fact that he had no idea what the Doctor was talking about, but he understood the order of cause and effect well enough to know something was off about the Doctor's dire prediction.

"Doctor, if these . . . these _monsters_ are already here," he said carefully, "if these apparitions from the past—"

"And the future, inevitably."

"And the future," Fogg added, "are starting to pop up left, right, and center, doesn't that mean we're too late? Whatever you're trying to prevent has already happened, and we're feeling the repercussions of it."

"Not as the case may be, Mr. Fogg." The Doctor explained, the biting edge to his words betraying his impatience, "These are flash-forwards, temporal alarm bells, if you like. They warn of a much more dire cataclysm lurking in the near future, a ripple spreading from a fixed point in time and steadily drawing closer. The Master is playing havoc with Earth's timeline, or will play havoc with Earth's timeline, and the timeline is beginning to panic."

"We better thumb another ferry then, and take the water route up Long Island Sound to prevent this little catastrophe of yours." Fogg said, "I don't entirely relish the thought of Kronosaurs swimming around in the harbor."

"Kronosaurs in the harbor, King Arthur in Downing Street, Magnus Greel standing shoulder to shoulder with Crick and Watson." The Doctor shuddered, but not from the cold. "It will be a new Earth propelled forward at least 50 years in technological development. I have seen the future, Mr. Fogg, and what it spells for the destiny of mankind is too ghastly to contemplate."

For reasons Fogg did not know, he took the Doctor for his word. In the mysterious man's company, he found his ability to believe the unbelievable becoming more robust by the minute.

"We should probably start making for dry land. Try to catch another ferry at Whitehall."

"There isn't enough time," said the Doctor despairingly. "Even if we did manage hitch another lift, which is unlikely considering the sinking of the last ferry and the official investigation that will follow, the presence of the Kronosaurus and the rips in time indicate that the moment of the cataclysm is drawing nearer. We have to stop the Master by midnight tonight, or we may as well not even bother."

Fogg snorted, "Ha! What you're asking isn't possible, Doctor. By magical means or by nonmagical ones! Even if we double back towards Battery Park and take the short-cut up the East River until it drains into Long Island Sound, we wouldn't reach Shoreham by tomorrow afternoon, never mind tonight by midnight!"

"I'm open to suggestions if you've got a better idea!"

"Don't you have transport of your own? How'd you get here in the first place? To New York, I mean." Fogg's tone grew deep and probing. "That blue cabinet of yours, the one you were tinkering with . . ."

"You wouldn't believe me even if I felt like wasting my time trying to explain it to you. Take my word for it, Mr. Fogg . . . the TARDIS is completely out of commission for the time being, until the Master's tampering has been entirely rectified."

The Doctor went silent as he began to row back to Whitehall Terminal. The oars were big and heavy, but the Time Lord did not seem to have any problem maneuvering the large boat towards Manhattan, with the help of Fogg at the rudder. If anything, the Doctor was grateful for the monotonous activity. It warmed his freezing muscles, and gave him something to think about other than the utter hopelessness of his predicament. It kept him from thinking about Peri and Frobisher . . . an Nikola Tesla. He was more worried about them than he liked to admit, even to himself. Very rarely had he ever felt so entirely out of control of a crisis. The Master was cutting down lines of continuity like a possessed lawn mower, and the Doctor could not think of a single way to stop him, or even get to him, for that matter.

"You know, Doctor." Fogg broke the silence with mock casualness. "These "time distortions" you say are going to destroy us all . . . for the most part, I take your word for it simply because I've seen the results of them with my own eyes. I've seen those same results sink a small Staten Island ferry. But you said that other things could come through besides the Kronosaurus?"

"Eventually, yes," agreed the Doctor. "Rips in the fabric of time and space aren't choosy."

"Do those things happen to include large silver flying machines with rotating teeth?"

The Doctor stared at him, eyes narrowed, brow creased. "Why?"

"Because there's one headed right for us!"

The Doctor's head whirled around towards the charcoal sky, where a streak of shining silver glinted in the pale morning light—a speeding bullet in a field of snow. An airplane burst from behind the cloud bank like the break of dawn and descended with alarming speed, its nose pointing haphazardly towards the icy water. As the craft banked upward to belly-graze the harbor, the Doctor's spectacular eyesight treated him to a minute glimpse of the pilot—untidy curled hair burst from underneath aviator goggles, eyes wide but focused on the joystick as he brought the plane down over the water and skimmed the surface. The water rippled outward and rocked the lifeboat dangerously to the side.

"A Lockheed Model 10 Electra!" The Doctor murmured, wonderstruck, "And in absolute mint condition!"

"It's like that contraption those Wright brothers made about a week ago," Fogg noted, squinting because he could not believe his eyes. "But what's it running on? How's it flying?"

"Some things are best left to the imagination. You'll find out in twenty years time."

He growled, "But this can't be coincidence!" Fogg drew his colt pistol again as the downed pilot tried to extradite himself from the cockpit of his plane.

"Put that thing away!"

"We need a ride to Shoreham, and what happens to show up? A flying machine! Someone is setting a trap for us!"

The Doctor's eyes widened as the pilot removed his aviator goggles and gazed at his surroundings in awe. He may as well have touched down on a completely alien planet.

Rather, she may as well have touched down on a completely alien planet.

"I don't believe it." The Doctor's grin was like a child's at Christmas. "Perhaps this day isn't going to turn out so bad after all. One thing is for certain, Mr. Fogg: this is no trap. Hey! Over here!"

Fogg's eyes bugged. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Don't be such a Brigadier, Mr. Fogg. This young lady and I go back a ways."

"Do you know him . . . wait, her?!"

"Of course I do, you buffoon!" The Doctor began to wave his arms, gesticulating crazily to get the pilot's attention.

"That's Amelia Earhart!"


	13. Chapter 12: Fine Grey Dust

_"At times it has seemed to me as though I myself heard a whispering voice, and I have searched eagerly among my dusty bulbs and bottles. I fear my imagination has deceived me, but there they are still, my dusty bulbs, and I am still listening hopefully."_

___— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

The door banged shut, leaving Peri and Frobisher alone with nothing but the fading echo of the Master's dark laughter.

They were trapped within the dank prison buried underneath the Wardenclyffe laboratories. After being marched at gunpoint by Martin Cooper through the lighted brilliance of cloud and sea fog surrounding the facility, the subterranean prison of stone and crumbling mortar was as dark as a shadow. Peri could not discern wall from floor from ceiling, and her eyes refused to readjust to the dimness.

The only source of light came from the watery rays of Christmas Eve morning sun streaming in through a single, barred window set high into the wall. The light illuminated a small area of the floor and a worktable, but very little else. It electrified the floating particles of brick dust and turned them into motes of crystalline starlight.

The rustle of cloth, the shifting of body weight, echoed in a shadowed corner of the room. Frobisher turned to face the phantasmic interloper, and gave a start when he heard the echo of featherlight footfalls.

"Peri," he found it wise to whisper, for some irrational reason he could not put a finger on, "I don't think we're alone down here."

Peri swallowed. Her throat was sandpaper raw, and her limbs had gone limp. She did not think her constitution could handle another nasty surprise after what she had put it through over the last few hours. Peri nearly screamed when the owner of the footsteps began to speak . . .

"I would bid you be seated, and make yourself comfortable," said a smooth European voice. "But, as you are no doubt already aware, hospitality is not mine to bestow."

With what Peri could have sworn was a dash of the theatric, the hidden company took a meaningful step into the pool of aqueous sunlight. His pale features blazed even in the weak light, and he portrayed an aura of keenness and stark scrutiny that made Peri feel very . . . inadequate. Very small.

He was a tall man who carried himself to his full six feet six inches, standing imperiously despite the blatant signs of hunger gnawing away at his malnourished frame and stress tugging at the corners of his absurdly blue eyes. His onyx mop of hair, like his somber ensemble of clothing, looked as though it had once been tidy, but had grown deplorably stringy and rumbled over a long period of time. Standing in the light, Peri could see that the ma's body was fidgety and his hands were twitchy, as if he would like nothing more than to be elsewhere fiddling with odd bits and pieces that did not require fiddling with, that should have been left well alone. He reminded Peri of the Doctor in that respect.

On the whole, he was handsome, in a studious, passé sort of way. But he looked sick, discontent, and very, very tired.

Peri recognized him immediately, as his face had been seared into her mind since the first burst of chronon energy aboard the TARDIS.

And he, of course, recognized _her_.

"I do not take any pleasure in seeing you here, Miss Brown," he said with no small amount of frigidness, "but politeness dictates I welcome you anyway."

Peri straightened her back, struggling to make eye contact with the towering man. "You're Nikola Tesla."

It was not a question.

Tesla inclined his head in acknowledgement. "You know quite well who I am, Miss Brown. I have communicated with you on a number of occasions. Regrettably, we were rudely interrupted during our last conference."

She frowned, wracking the stores of her memory. "I don't remember that."

"Due to some manner of interference on the part of the Master, I fear. Your thoughts were not difficult for him to corrupt. Being as you so puerilely ignored my warning against coming to Wardenclyffe, I can see why."

Peri scowled. The inventor's frosty tone was beginning to grate against her ears.

"You've been inside Peri's mind while we were aboard the TARDIS, so you were you expecting us?" inquired Frobisher, his voiced hushed with a generous amount of awe. Even Whifferdills were privy to the legacy of the great Nikola Tesla, inventor and visionary extraordinaire.

Tesla eyed Frobisher with caution, but deference. "On the contrary. I did not want Miss Brown to come to this place."

"We hardly had a choice in the matter!" whined Peri.

"There are always choices. Do you not travel in a vessel that can transcend the bounds of time as the Master tells me? You made the conscious decision to come to this city at this specific point in Earth's history, did you not?"

"No! Well, I mean yes. Sort of." Peri struggled to explain, "We came here to find the source of the time distortion. The Doctor was trying to solve the problem you were warning me about! We came to help!"

Tesla turned his full attention to Frobisher. Arching a skeptical eyebrow as he examined the young, fair-haired man standing before him, he asked, "You are the Doctor?"

Frobisher was not fond of lying to anyone, especially to someone of Nikola Tesla's prestige, but he gave a grave nod anyway. "I am."

"You are barely past manhood! The superhuman feats necessary to undo the Master's manipulation seem slightly beyond your own capabilities."  
"Appearances aren't everything, you know." Frobisher insisted, "I'm much older than I look."

Tesla squinted, looking down into the fifth Doctor's open, pleasant features. He seemed to drink in every detail, lap up every facet of Frobisher's disguise. Frobisher coughed awkwardly, which caused Tesla to break away from his scrutiny with an expression of disgust and disappointment.

Tesla's words were steel. "You are not the Doctor."

Frobisher turned as white as a fresh linen sheet. "Erm . . . ah . . . What do you mean?"

"Miss Brown, you were the one who introduced me to the Doctor, or rather the idea of him. It did not take long for the Master himself to begin speaking of this mysterious figure. He spoke of a man who is not, in fact, a man in any sense I would understand. The Doctor treads the edges of the Master's mind, haunts him like a waking nightmare. I think it is the threat of his enemy's interference that has galvanized the Master into such dire action in such little time. He fears the Doctor. He does not, however, fear a man like you."

"He and the Doctor are one and the same, Mr. Tesla," argued Peri. She crossed her arms defiantly. "Perhaps you're not as much of a smart-ass as you would like to think."

Tesla's face darkened with anger, and he snapped, "Do not insult me, Miss Brown. I know this man is not the Doctor. You will find that I am no Martin Cooper. I am not so easily fooled by cheap tricks and illusions. I do not condone the practices of charlatans."

Once again, Peri felt Frobisher's fib falling apart, disintegrating under Tesla's unrelenting scrutiny.

"How did you know?" Frobisher asked quietly, desperate to relinquish the lie. His voice returned to its Brooklyn normality.

Tesla's flinty gaze softened, as if he appreciated the Whifferdill dropping his air of pretense. "Your eyes, sir."

"Frobisher. Just Frobisher."

"Your eyes . . . Frobisher. They are smiling eyes. You, unlike I, have already had more than your full measure of life's exquisite enjoyment; so much, that for many years your life was no doubt little short of continuous rapture. Unfortunately, unlike myself, recent years have treated you with kindness. There were many days during my captivity where I did not know where my next meal was coming from. I lived with the possibility that any day could be the day my usefulness to the Master would run its course. Likewise, the Doctor suffered from such helplessness, loosing control of the forces that govern his life and the lives of those he cares about. The Doctor would have old eyes, tired eyes, full of kindness as well as sadness and despair. Such is the price one pays for fighting a battle one possesses no desire to win."

Peri considered the tall, overwrought inventor looming over her like a skinny storm cloud. He seemed equal parts wise philosopher and arrogant braggart. She could not decide whether she was warming to him or not.

"You seem very sure, Mr. Tesla," she remarked, not unkindly. "The Doctor is as much a mystery to me as this time anomaly is to him. And I've known him for . . . long enough."

"I know him, Miss Brown, because he is the mirror through which I attempt to see myself. The Master has touched my mind, invaded it, perverted it. He has controlled it as easily as I would control a paper boat on the Sava River. If a being so twisted and blackened by his own desire for destruction can be antithetically represented by a man who travels across the expanses of time in a wooden blue box . . . then I desire nothing more than to know him as I would know myself. So I knew, young Frobisher, that you were not the Doctor, because you do not carry the Doctor's burden in your eyes. The burden I myself know and fear."  
Frobisher let out a breath he had been involuntarily holding in. Tesla's tone wasn't scolding or berating. He was soft-spoken, almost sympathetic.

"So, does that mean I can take this body off before You-Know-Who tries anything smart again?" Frobisher looked meaningfully at Peri.

"I would be averse to changing your guise, Frobisher," interjected Tesla, much to Peri's annoyance. "The Master does not take kindly to being duped."

"Well, Sir Isaac Newton," Peri huffed, "Frobisher's been having some problems and it's probably for the best that he changes back to his old form."

Tesla's eyes narrowed. "Form? As in . . . body? This . . . transformation is deeper than I speculated."

Frobisher scratched the back of his head, thinking of the best way to put his explanation into 20th Century terms, "Erm . . . yes. You see, Mr. Tesla, I'm not exactly what you would call a fella from around these parts."

"I had assumed you to be a New Yorker with a particularly useful penchant for disguise."

"A rather incoherent account, but essentially correct." A ripple ran across Frobisher's features, like a shiver of gooseflesh in wintry air. His body shuddered, and his voice morphed to full-blown British. "Mr. Frobisher is a Whifferdill, a shape-changing species from the planet Xenon in the Mutter's Spiral. There are only fifteen of these fascinating creatures left in existence, so Frobisher here is something of an endangered species—PERI! He's back, stronger this time!"

"Oh no!" Peri cupped her head in her hands. "Not now!"

Tesla looked concerned. "Frobisher's eyes . . . they are old eyes."

Peri cried, "Doctor! Please, you have to leave him alone."

Tesla did not understand what was happening. Frobisher had changed somehow, of that he was certain, but something told him that the change went far deeper than just an alteration in syntax. But, ever the reserved scientist, he was content to be an insect on the wall and observe the situation before offering an opinion.

"Peri!" Frobisher—the Doctor's—bright young face was splitting with pleasure. "How have you been since Androzani? I do apologize for leaving you so abruptly with that uncultured bumbler in the vulgar coat, but I'm sure we'll set the situation to rights before long."

Peri's voice wavered, her stutter creeping in. She whispered, "D-Doctor, this version of you is dead. Your fifth body died."

His smile faltered. "No. No I didn't. I'm alive right now, am I not?"

"No, you're dead! You contracted spectrox toxaemia on Androzani Minor and had to regenerate to save your life. There's something the matter with Earth's history that's causing time to overlap and wind back on itself. You're just projecting through the body of my friend, a shape-shifter who was using your form when we arrived at the heart of the time anomaly. That isn't your body to take over! You're not supposed to be here anymore, and you have to let Frobisher go!"

The fifth Doctor's pleasant expression was now very strained. "Stop acting so childish, Peri. You don't know what it is you're saying."  
"I do!" She cried in anguish, "Please believe me!"

"I am NOT going back!" He roared, shattering the illusion of flippancy, "Don't you dare make me go back to the dark! I will not! I am here! I exist! I am the DOCTOR!"

"No."

Tesla had spoken. Both Peri, and the shade that inhabited Frobisher's transmogrified body, fell silent.

"Regeneration. Rebirth. The beginning as an end. These concepts I have gleaned from the Master's intrusions into my mind." Tesla's blue eyes bore into the Doctor's. "Life is and will ever remain an equation incapable of solution, but it contains certain known factors. These factors are the facets that define one's humanity and uniqueness in the pool of the world's chaos. They are still points in space as well as still points in time. Your own time seems to have reached its end, Doctor. Frobisher is not your enemy, and nor am I. Do not make one of me by forsaking his life."

"I want to live," pleaded the Doctor.

Tesla would not be swayed. He did not understand the theory—the science—of the people around him, but he did understand their humanity. "We all do, my friend. But everywhere on Earth there is an appalling loss of time, effort and life. A cheerless view, but true. Your life is over. Your time is over, and that is also a cheerless view you must come to accept as true."

The fifth Doctor's icy stare froze Peri even more than the biting winter chill flying around Tesla's prison. She hugged her Edwardian attire closer to her shivering shoulders.

"I gave my life for you, Peri," he said quietly. "All I received in return was your hate of my new body, my new self. What sort of sacrifice is that? What was the purpose of my death?"

"Go away, Doctor." She whispered, her words hanging in the air, "Please."

* * *

_"Go away, Doctor. Please."  
_  
The Master was stewing in a paroxysm of his own rage. His anger pulsed through his mind like peals of thunder through the sky. It blocked out any attempt to control his tumultuous emotions.

Martin Cooper stood impassively next to his employer, unruffled in an impeccably-groomed, formal frock coat. He listened to the radio transmission of Perpugilliam Brown's exchanges with Nikola Tesla. They were joined by someone with a prim and proper British accent Cooper did not recognize.

_"You cannot comprehend the darkness, the complete desolation, in the confines of the Doctor's subconscious. My subconscious!" insisted the British voice with complete earnest, imploring Tesla and Miss Brown to take pity. "You do not know what you are asking of me by sending me back, Peri Brown. You cannot know—ARGGGHH! I AM FROBISHER! I am not a Time Lord! Help me, Peri! Help me for pity's sake!"  
_  
The Master slammed his fist onto the radio console and sent the set of equipment crashing to the floor. His eyes blazed like sunlight off a glacier, and even the unflappable Martin Cooper flinched.

"The Doctor, you said," he hissed through bared teeth, his knuckles clenched into ghost-white fists. "The Doctor in his fifth body, you said."

"How was I to know this . . . Frobisher fella was masquerading as the hit? I followed a physical description, and he fit the details I was given. I wouldn't know the Doctor personally if I tripped over his backside," protested Cooper.

"It never occurred to you that's such a man, capable of all the things I have warned you about, would try to fool you?" The Master said, "That sniveling coward sent a Whifferdill in his place!"

"He must not have much concern for Miss Brown's safety," Cooper pointed out, "to send her into our charge with a decoy."

"The Doctor has always been a hopeless romantic, a sentimental old fool. Miss Brown is in as much danger as the Doctor, whether knowingly or unknowingly, would have her be. As for Mr. Frobisher . . ."

The Master brushed something hidden under the hem of his coal-black cloak, tucked tidily into a concealed pocket of his trousers. Cooper detected the motion, and nodded approvingly.

"His services will not be required in the coming operation."

* * *

Tesla led the barely conscious Frobisher to the only chair in the dark room. The inventor noted the return of a younger, fresher light to Frobisher's eyes, an extinguishment of the fire of Doctor's ancient irises.

Miss Brown's relief at her friend's unsteady return to relative normality was obvious.

She asked, "Is that you, Frobisher?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm back." Frobisher let out a shaky breath. "Can't say I remember much, though. It's like that one time I spent a Friday night with a particularly outgoing group of time agents . . . everything blurs together after the fifth drink."

"I venture a guess that your episode was not due in part to alcohol consumption?" Tesla asked with a minute dash of sarcasm.

"So Mr. Frosty Britches does have a sense of humor," Peri noted shrewishly.

Tesla's glare was withering.

She continued, ignoring the sour expressions shot her way, "The Doctor can change his face, his entire physical appearance, in a process called "regeneration" whenever something threatens his life to a critical extent."

"I know that."

She rolled her eyes. "Anyway . . . because of this screwing around with history the Master's been doing, or is going to do, there are fractures opening in time. Frobisher is currently disguised as one of the Doctor's older selves, and somehow that persona from the past is leaking through the time cracks and is using Frobisher's body in the present as a portal for getting into the land of the living. The attacks have been getting worse since we left New York, but that last one really took the biscuit! Do you get it now, Oh Brilliant One?"

Tesla was becoming increasingly irritated by the young woman's inane facetiousness.

"The only relevant piece of information at this juncture," he said, "is that we now have three minds working together instead of one. We can challenge the Master's mental dominance by—"

Tesla was very rudely interrupted by the prison door sailing open and banging against the wall with a clang that made their ears ring. Standing silhouetted in the doorway was the shadowy figure of the Master, Martin Cooper at his side.

"I hope we've all been duly acquainted," purred the Master.

Tesla did not say a word. Peri just glared, and Frobisher tried very hard to shrink into nonexistence in the corner.

"Good! Now then, to business."

The Master drew a staser pistol, a weapon stolen from the holster of one of the Gallifreyan chancellery guard. Both Peri and Frobisher yelped in fright, but Tesla remained stony-faced and unperturbed.

"Whifferdill mesomorphs are endangered." The Master said with a cool collectiveness that sent Frobisher's heart into his throat, "To even draw a weapon against one is a capital galactic offense."

Peri stood in front of her friend, surprising herself with her own bravery, or perhaps her own stupidity. She snarled like a tigress, "Don't you dare touch him!"

The Master's smile fled in an instant, and he gave a curt nod to Cooper. Wordlessly, the assassin lashed out and pinned Peri against the far wall with the barrel of his gun and a sinewy, muscular arm.

"Frobisher!" screamed Peri, wriggling in vain against Cooper's strength. "Let me go! Tesla, help him!"

Tesla's blue eyes blazed, but before he could take a step towards Frobisher the Master pressed a finger to his own temple, and sent Tesla plummeting to the stony floor. The Master's mental grip had the prone inventor writhing on the ground in utter agony, crying like a child.

Frobisher backed against the wall under the window—alone, terrified, and with nowhere to run.

"I need a human for my experiments, Whifferdill." The Master intoned passionlessly, raising the barrel of the staser, "Despite visual evidence to the contrary, you are not human. Ergo, you are disposable."

Frobisher pleaded breathlessly, "Please . . ."

"NO! You can't! Please, you can't do this!" shrieked Peri.

"Goodbye, Mr. Frobisher."

Frobisher glued his eyes shut. Very quietly, he sobbed into his upturned collar, "I'm so sorry, Francine."

The Master savored the look of utter anguish on the fifth Doctor's face, and pulled the trigger.

The shot was silent, firing with the flash of a torch rather than the blast of a bullet. Frobisher died quietly, his expression sad but serene. He exploded into a cloud of fine grey dust, which soon dispersed into the crystalline motes floating through the beam of sunlight.

Peri could not stop screaming, until Cooper clobbered the side of her head with the butt of his gun, and everything went blissfully dark.


	14. Chapter 13: Ties Inseparable

_"Though free to think and act, we are held together, like the stars in the firmament, with ties inseparable. These ties cannot be seen, but we can feel them."_

_— Nikola Tesla, The Century Magazine, June, 1900 — _

* * *

_"D-D-Doctor?"_

There is an audible groan, as if he's still in a lot of pain. She wonders if the poison has been completely flushed from his system, if it's not affecting him in some way. She shuffles forward on her knees, ignoring the dull ache coursing up her legs from the scabby pustules carpeting her shins. She still has a headache and her limbs are tingly with pins and needles. Her clothes are dirty from the sand and slick from her sweat. Despite her own disarray, she can only think of HIM, praying that he hasn't been too badly hurt . . . that he really is okay . . . that it really wasn't the time to say goodbye.

"You were expecting someone else?"

The words are harsh, clipped, and arrogant. They're spoken in a voice she doesn't recognize. A voice that's a pitch too low and a sentiment too short of being anything remotely kind. It is a voice one learns quickly to dislike.

She burbles, "I-I-I . . ."

She knows she sounds like a stuttering idiot, but she cannot think of a single coherent thing to say. She doesn't know how, or why, but she knows that the person hunched over on the console room floor is not the Doctor. The jacket and pants have filled out. The hair is different; the airy, flaxen locks have been replaced by a halo of golden ringlets. The rest of his face is shielded by the collar of the sooty, stained cricket jacket, but even so, she can tell that he isn't the man she knew a few moments before.

He is a stranger in the Doctor's body, a living memory.

"That's three "I"s in one breath. That makes you sound like a rather egotistical young lady!"

Her jaw scrapes the floor. She can't believe what she's hearing! Not even a full minute ago, she was cradling a man with tears in his beautiful blue eyes, the gaze fixated upon the far distance, crying for someone called "Adric". Then . . . a flash of light, the hiss of escaping air, the shiver of stillness as the world stopped spinning on its axis . . . and now he's different. Different in ways she cannot begin to comprehend.

"W-what's happened?"

She is asking herself more than she is asking him. She speaks her thoughts out loud. She doesn't want to hear his voice again . . . she doesn't want to hear that concrete reminder that she's lost something she can never get back. She remembers something Erimem said to her, many months ago . . .

"Everyone has the right to make two mistakes."  
_  
Is this new man the Doctor's second chance?_

His detestable voice draws her out of her reverie. "Change, m'dear." He chuckles under his breath, and it's like the sound of knives on a chalkboard. It's the sound of Bond villains and monsters that go bump in the night. It's the sound Howard makes when he's about to visit . . . when he knows she won't tell Mom anything.

Suddenly, she wants this stranger to go. Suddenly, though it's horrible and selfish and wrong, she wishes he would just disappear, fade away into whatever insubstantial netherworld he crawled out of. This guy isn't the Doctor. He can't be! He _mustn't__ be!_

"And it seems not a moment too soon!"

"No."

It isn't right. She knows she shouldn't. She knows she hasn't, not really . . . not in a world she fears she has already created beyond the boundaries of her memories. But the words come out anyway, surge forward as the dam of her emotions finally bursts . . .

"Go away," she whispers on bated breath.

He wheels around, faces her for the first time since he plopped her prone form into the TARDIS and sent the ship spiraling away from the boiling hellhole of Androzani Minor. For the first time since he . . . changed.

His face is fuller than it was—not fat, but strong-featured and pronounced. His eyes are still a bright cornflower blue, but spark with an electric energy that is as beguiling as it is frightening. He has an emotive mouth pursed in a disapproving glower. He wears the expression like he was born to, which saddens her, and enrages her, even more.

He sniffs in utter contempt, "I beg your pardon?"

"I said . . . GO AWAY!"

She is screaming. She knows she sounds like a spoilt child, but she can't stop. It feels right, somehow.

"You're not the Doctor! You're nothing like him!"

"Oh, do shut up, you stupid girl," he snarls. She knows he cannot possibly be this mean or this cruel, but something in her mind is morphing his words to say the things she fears the most. "I am the Doctor, even if your weak constitution can't seem to handle the fact!"

"You're lying! You killed him! God, you killed him and took his place!"

"I did nothing of the sort!"

"You did!" The tears begin to fall, fast and heavy. "Every single goddamn thing in my life has to be taken away eventually, doesn't it? Why?! If you're the Doctor and you're the smartest guy in the universe, answer me that!"

"Very well." A wicked smile, a cruel sneer, tugs at the corners of his lips as he murmurs, "I will, Perpugilliam Brown.

"Your father left you when you were very little, didn't he? Paul Brown, killed in a boating accident when you were a mere thirteen years old. For a while, your world collapsed about your feet, the sky fell and time came to a grinding halt. For you, the Earth had stopped turning, and you couldn't for the life of you understand why it hadn't stopped turning for everyone else as well. It didn't seem fair that they could go about their regular lives and not succumb to the chasm of sadness you yourself were tumbling down. But that devastating grief, that hole torn in the fabric of your life, didn't stop widowed Janine from looking for love again, did it? Your father dies, and you get stuck with Howard Foster for your troubles. And Howard had a high capacity for love, didn't he, Peri? Especially for you . . ."

She goes cold. "You can't know that. Nobody knows that . . ."

The Doctor's voice goes deep like a darkened whisper, but echoey as if he is the biggest man in the universe. In the blink of an eye, he is not the Doctor at all, not in any sense. He is a specter, a twisted amalgamation of everything she fears curled into a repulsive, leering phantasm who haunts the corners of her vision, dancing on dappled shadows and playing coy with the light.

He is the new Doctor, arrogant and uncaring.

He is Sharaz-Jek, lusting for her in the darkness.

He is the Master, manipulating her into hurting her friends.

And then he is Howard, coming for her in the night, during the small black hours before the dawn.

"Don't tell your mother, Peri," he hisses. "Don't tell your mother."

"LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"The Doctor you cared about, the Doctor you lo—"

"STOP IT!"

"He's dead, you know. Perhaps I did kill him."

"No, he's not! He changed! Please, dear God, I'm so sorry Doctor please come back don't leave me here alone please Doctor Mom anybody . . ."

"How does it feel to be abandoned, Peri? How does it feel to die?"

"Help me, Mom!" She cries like a child, beating her fists against a dreamlike reality, against the nightmare of her life.

"Oh, poor Miss Brown." He mocks her, shames her. "Poor Peri Brown left to spend her days alone with the Master, with Sharaz-Jek, with a Doctor whose friendship died with his other self! Sad Miss Brown . . . weak Miss Brown . . . brittle Miss Brown . . . Miss Brown . . . Miss Brown . . . Miss Brown!"

"Miss Brown!"

* * *

"Time is not uniform."

Saying it aloud, hearing his native tongue mould the words, offered Nikola Tesla some manner of solidarity. Unfortunately, it still felt as though he were trying to make himself believe in his own argument.

"Time is not uniform."

Whether or not the conviction of its truth existed, the notion had been nibbling away at Tesla's formidable mind for quite some time, ever since his encounter with the Master on that infamous March night in 1884.

Time is not uniform. Time does not operate as a steady flow of cause to effect, decision to consequence, action to reaction. Such a stagnant, and indeed predictable universe that must spawn from the progression of linear time could not play host to omnipotent beings like the Master, and by extension the mysterious Doctor. A sentient creature, human or otherwise, able to think of past and future events as inexorably tangled like a cat's cradle of yarn must regard the nature of time and space as relative rather than absolute. Like different wavelengths of light, different spectrums of time run in an ambiguous yet mellifluous blur flowing from a single moment of decision.

Therefore, time can be thought of as Yggdrasil, the World Tree of Norse mythology—branches upon branches of alternate futures stemming from the roots of consequence and growing into the unfathomable void of possibilities and might-have-beens.

He, Nikola Tesla, existed on one branch, on one of the many possible paths his life could have taken, whereas the Master and the Doctor existed on multiple branches, as coils of brambles twisting amongst one another, branding their histories in the wood. The branches ensconced in the bramble's coils, the lives of Peri Brown and Frobisher and even, as he had begun to fear, his own, become a part of a variable future, of a fluctuating time spectrum.

Relative time frightened him, and he was not a man easily frightened by notions of a scientific nature.

And yet . . . whenever he considered the young woman slumbering on his pallet of blankets, just feet away from his spartan worktable, he was not frightened. Angry, yes. Curious, yes. Perturbed, obviously.

But not frightened.

"The Master's entire plan hinges on you, Miss Brown," murmured Tesla into the darkness, his voice as transparent and indistinct as the white fog blanketing the Sound. "An inventor's ultimate purpose is the complete mastery of mind over the material world, the harnessing of the forces of nature to human needs. The Master is the inventor, subjecting the world to his needs and placing it under the mastery of his mind. But no inventor is complete without his tools . . . his apparatus. You are the fulcrum on which two forces hover in a dangerous balance. By coming here, you may have tipped that balance in the wrong favor.

"Why could you not just stay away from Wardenclyffe? I do not understand what is going to happen, and I fear the variable future laying ahead of us, but the least you could do is answer me that . . . I cannot understand that which I do not know."

_The Master is an oily black, the Doctor is an ivory white; Peri Brown and I are an anthracite grey, caught in a war as old and as inexplicable as time itself.  
_  
Tesla tore himself from his thoughts, letting the canvas of color evanesce from his mind. He found that he had been subconsciously assembling the tuning capacitor of a small radio. The rest of the device was stacked in a corner of his workbench, cannibalized beyond recognition. Whereas the Master's laboratory, located in the main chamber of Wardenclyffe, housed a veritable spectra of scientific and technological marvels the mind could only attempt to comprehend, Tesla's own equipment amounted to little more than a sputtering bunsen burner.

Tesla was a genius, and the Master was well aware of what he could accomplish given a sufficient stream of electronic supplies. The Master had granted Tesla the calm of the dark Wardenclyffe chamber, catering to his inherent scotophilia, but had deprived him of all but the most basic of equipment. Tesla needed to work. He needed to invent. He was nothing without his creations.

The lack of stimulation was maddening.

A whimper drew his attention. Miss Brown's closed eyes flickered, and her breathing quickened. She began to thrash around in her sleep, attempting to break free of the restraints of some unnamable horror. Her shaking head swung from side to side, and more than once came dangerously close to making contact with the stone floor. Fearful that she would harm herself in her stupor, Tesla began to shake her arm.

"Miss Brown, you must awaken."

"Miss Brown! Peri!"

She croaked something curiously like "Mom" amidst her mewling. The thrashing became more violent.

"Miss Brown!"

Peri's eyes snapped open, and she bolted upright as Tesla's shaking wrenched her out of the maw of her nightmare. A Formula 1 race car of pain rode around her head and down her spine. She took a few rasping breaths, trying to clear the multicolored speckles dancing in her line of sight. Her head pulsed rhythmically with her fast heartbeat and the darkened room perambulated dangerously. For a moment, her vision blurred and the pale oval of Nikola Tesla's face began to spiral into blotches of black light. Her stomach heaved and her aching muscles begged to slip back into the arms of unconsciousness.

"Steady, Peri. Steady," said Tesla. He braced her back as another wave of nauseating pain pounded against her skull. "Do not attempt to rise too quickly."  
Peri said something extremely intelligent along the lines of, "Whaaaaatshappened?"

"Head trauma. Martin Cooper, in his infinite mercy," Tesla spat the words, "knocked you unconscious with his pistol. Rather violently, I am afraid."

Tentatively, Peri raised a hand to her head. She winced as she danced her fingers along the contours of the massive lump rising just above her left ear. It felt like she had an avocado under her skin!

"Remarkably, you received only superficial injuries. It is fortunate Cooper did not aim his firearm a few centimeters lower," continued Tesla, trying to ease her into a more controlled, calm state of mind. "I doubt your auditory senses would have been so lucky."

Peri darted her eyes around their prison, searching for a certain blond head. She ignored Tesla's concern and murmured darkly, "Where's Frobisher?"

Nikola Tesla looked away. Shame and sorrow clouded his saturnine features.

"Well?" Peri demanded angrily, "Where is he?"

"Do you not remember?"

"I feel as though my head's been smashed in by a cartload of watermelons . . . of course I can't damn well remember!"

Tesla's tone hardened a touch as he said icily, "Frobisher is dead."

The floor started to spin. "What?"

"Mr. Frobisher is dead, Peri. The Master shot him with a firearm I did not recognize. Martin Cooper rendered you unconscious shortly afterwards."

"You're lying. You must be!"

"I never lie, Miss Brown." The ice melted a fraction of a degree. "I am sorry, but I am telling the truth. Frobisher is gone."

A hole opened up in the center of Peri's chest. She wanted to cry, but no tears found their way out. Tears, somehow, were not enough to convey the anguish that had replaced every other emotion within her. Her entire body felt hollow and numb, empty of all but the echoing miasma of Tesla's words and her aching grief.

It was like losing her father again. It was like losing the Doctor again.

"This is my fault," she struggled to get the words out through her chapped lips, "if I hadn't convinced him to turn into the Doctor—"

"Then Martin Cooper would have killed Frobisher back in New York. You cannot blame yourself for what has happened," Tesla reassured her.

"I could tell myself that until I'm blue in the face and it still wouldn't help," Peri argued bitterly. "Frobisher had the biggest heart of any person I knew. Why should we live and he have to die?"

"In some cases, Miss Brown, we do not control the paths our lives take. We do not sculpt the branches of Yggdrasil," he said enigmatically. "We are alive and Frobisher is dead simply because the Master is in control, and everything at Wardenclyffe occurs according to his design. Frobisher was not important to that design."

"Is that all you can say? He died because he wasn't important enough?!"

"To the Master, Frobisher's life was not worth preserving."

Peri saw red. "You're not human, Tesla. You can't possibly be that callous."

"You are no stranger to the Master's machinations, Miss Brown. The sooner you learn to understand why the Master does what he does, the more likely you are to survive the coming hours." Tesla kneeled until he was at Peri's eye level. "Frobisher was not important."

Peri's hand twitched. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to smack that smart-ass mouth right off his face. She stood up, ignored the aching throb in her head, and met Tesla's icy gaze. She was so angry, so upset, that she trembled. She imagined her brown eyes catching fire, burning Tesla with her rage.

_Frobisher was not important.  
_  
"He was to me," she hissed.

* * *

Martin Cooper snorted in cruel amusement. His voice had gone very nasal from his hopelessly swollen broken nose. "Miss Brown and Tesla seem just short of murdering one another."

The Master regarded his accomplice with scarcely concealed anger. "We are fortunate she regained consciousness at all, you simpering fool!"

The corner of one of Cooper's baleful eyes ticked, but he said nothing.

"If she had been concussed by your primitive excuse for a weapon she would have been just short of useless to us! I have not endured the painstaking adversity of this operation to have ignoramuses like you foul it up at the critical stages! Now . . . go and get her."

"Why?" growled Cooper.

"We are accelerating the Time Jump. I'll have Tesla calibrate the electromagnetic coil to the correct frequencies, and you fetch the girl. If you so much as knick her arm I will make you rue the moment you came into existence.

"Our moment of triumph is upon us. It is time for Perpugilliam Brown to make her mark on the discourse of history."


	15. Chapter 14: An Ace Up Her Sleeve

_"If I were ever assailed by doubt of ultimate success I would dismiss it by remembering the words of that great philosopher, Lord Kelvin, who after witnessing some of my experiments said to me with tears in his eyes: 'I am sure you will do it.'"_

_— Nikola Tesla, Telegraph & Telegraph Age, October 16, 1927 —_

* * *

"I knew it! I just knew you'd have something to do with this beef! As soon as that whacking great hole opened up in front of Lady Lindy, I turned around in the cockpit and said to Fred: 'Fred,' I said, 'Fred, I bet it's the Doctor, out causing trouble again!'"

The Doctor grinned. "Good to see you too, Ace."

"I told you, Cat," Amelia Earhart narrowed her eyes, scrunching her face until her freckles were constellations across her cheeks, "don't call me Ace! You make me sound like some broad with a knack for burning powder."

"Don't call me Cat, then!" He argued with mock exasperation, "It's hardly dignified for a Time Lord."

"While you owe me a debt and wear that badge on your coat," she lifted up the corner of his dinner jacket lapel, fingering the white cat pin, "I'll call you what I like! Though, you are looking the real McCoy today. A bit spiffy for a quiet row on the water, but anything's better than that garish nightmare you used to go trouncing around in."

"Here I was under the impression you liked it."

"I get the feeling you say that of everyone. That rainbow nightmare of a flogger? Keep dreaming, Cat. Speaking of dreams," she leant forward until she hun over the water of New York harbor and poked the Doctor in the chest, "I'm not, am I? Dreaming, I mean. I wasn't feeling too well before we took off from New Guinea. _Itasca_ was breaking up and I suppose I could've blacked out in the cockpit. One can but hope."

The Doctor's expression turned grim. He shrugged off her hand as he said wearily, "You're not dreaming, Amelia. This is all very real."

"Oh, cripes. That's what I was afraid of." Amelia Earhart glanced around at the bleak, wintry landscape, wrinkling her nose in disgust. "Where are we, anyway? It's a right stiff of a place."

"New York City. You were fortunate enough to land Lady Lindy in the middle of New York harbor."

If she was surprised, she did not show it. "Well, I guess it's on-the-level lucky that Fred had us outfitted with amphibious landing pontoons during our stopover in Lae. Otherwise, that touchdown would have made one hell of a doozy of my plane. When are we?"

The question took the Doctor off-guard. "When?"

Amelia unbuckled the neck strap of her aviator helmet, allowing her short, dusty-blond hair to flap in the icy wind. She had a pleasing, aesthetic face accented by large grey eyes and high cheekbones, qualities that rendered her striking by human standards. "I'm no dumb dora, Cat. I know how it works with you. It's not enough to mess with space you gotta go messing with time, too. So . . . when are we?"

The humble Manhattan skyline caught her eye, and her mouth twisted into a frown of contemplation.

"I've been here before." She said, lost in memories, "This is New York as I once knew it. I was just a kid, but there's a vague familiarity about the place—"

The Doctor interjected, "It's 1903. It's Christmas Eve morning, and that's Lower Manhattan behind us. You probably visited on vacation when you were a baby."  
"Cripes," she said again. "How'd we get here? Was it your fault?"

"This is going to be a little difficult to explain—"

"You'd better get started then, before Fred unzips himself from that cockpit. I'm used to your piffle, but I'm not so sure Fred can handle the more balled-up details. You two don't exactly see eye to eye."

The Doctor offered no argument to the contrary. He stood up straight in the prow of the lifeboat, which Fogg had steered alongside the Electra's left side, and tried to meet Amelia's eye level. The private investigator, meanwhile, was staring slack-jawed at the silver behemoth of a plane. The culture shock was so great that he had not spared a thought to the Doctor and Amelia Earhart's conversation.

"What's the last thing you remember?" queried the Doctor.

The gentle prodding of the lifeboat caused the Electra to bob up and down on the water like a tide buoy. Amelia rested her hand against the smooth surface of the wing, patting the plane as affectionally as the Doctor would pat the TARDIS console. She kept her balance while pointedly avoiding the Time Lord's young-old eyes.

As she stood in silence, the Doctor began to realize just how tired Amelia Earhart looked. She had gotten thin and bony, more so than she already had been. Her cheekbones pressed against the skin of her freckled face. Her thick aviator jacket hung awkwardly on her shoulders and her blue pullover dangled around her neck, looking uncomfortably like a noose. Even her incorrigible sense of humor seemed strained, as if she had been through too much in too little time, and could not summon the energy to do so much as smile.

"We were struggling a bit, Cat—Doctor," she said quietly, all gayety gone. "We were running the line 157-337, north and south, approaching Howland Island in theory, but I'd be damned if I could see anything through the fog. _Itasca_, that's the Coast Guard cutter that was supposed to be monitoring our frequencies, wasn't acknowledging our transmissions. We had a rickety fuselage, a patchy fuel tank, and were losing juice fast; Fred was frantic and I was just short of hysterical. I didn't fancy our chances should I have to put Lady Lindy down on the water, especially in weather that rough. The battery cage is up in the belly of the plane, you know. It isn't waterproof, so if the wind had tipped us at all we would've shorted out everything. Blooey. Kaput. And then it's "Good Night Nurse" as we sink to the bottom of the Pacific faster than a lump of cement."

The Doctor knew the details all too well. He had been in his fifth body, visiting Chicago with Peri during the summer of 1937. He recalled when the telegrams began to arrive, when the newspaper boys began to scream Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan's disappearances into the morning air. The country was in an uproar over the loss of one of their most beloved public figures. Washington clamored for answers, the American people pointed fingers at everyone from the Japanese to alien abductors, and the Coast Guard combed the Pacific Ocean for wreckage and bodies the Doctor knew they would never find. Amelia did not come home, and the Doctor had felt her loss as much as anyone.

Evidently, despite the fixed point in time, despite the Doctor abandoning all hope, Amelia Earhart had not died in 1937. . .

"As our demise drew closer, the sky opened up," she continued, "we were flying directly towards a big black scar in the clouds. Fred tried contacting _Itasca_ again, on 6,210 kilocycles, but the cutter still wouldn't answer our distress calls. We could do nothing besides pray. There was a flash of light, and then we were hurtling towards this grey waste at 250 kilometers an hour. The wind let up significantly, and as we lost altitude we seemed to be cushioned on an air pocket. Our speed dropped, thank God—"

"The temporal wake slowed your descent, like the spume of a wave does a surfer," interrupted the Doctor, who then lowered his head abashedly. "Sorry, do go on."

"Anyway, Fred was able to control our descent at a slower speed. Lady Lindy skimmed the water on the new landing pontoons, and snap: Here we are."

"Here you are indeed." There was a lacing of unspoken guilt behind his words, some manner of personal shame. "Improbably. Impossibly. The whole world thinks . . . thought . . . you were dead."

Amelia latched on to his meaning like a particularly tenacious fishhook, and she frowned. Her leather bomber jacket squeaked as she crossed her arms. The Doctor cursed his loud mouth.

"Whad'ya mean, Cat? If, back . . . I mean forward . . . in 1937, everyone thinks we're dead, that implies we get trapped here, but Fred and I return to our own time, don't we? We're not gonna be stuck behind the eight ball forever."

"I don't know." The Doctor lied, "History is in flux as of the moment. I can't be sure what's going to happen, or if I can fix the damage that's been done."

"Someone scratch that on a record so I can hear it again."

"I am not being facetious! Something is happening to time, Amelia. Creatures from the past and people from the future are being pulled out of their regular time-streams by the elastic bands of temporal strain and catapulted to this time, to this place. We are approaching the center of a paradox which is slowly but inexorably tearing the universe apart."

"And that's what happened to me and Fred. We got caught in this . . . elastic."

"Yes. You were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time."

_Or in the right place at the necessary time, the Doctor added to himself. History says that on the 2nd of July, 1937, Amelia Earhart disappeared. Vanished off the face of the planet, in fact. Who is to say that this tear in the fabric of reality was not supposed to happen, that the Lady Lindy was destined to arrive in New York in 1903, thus ripping Amelia out of her predetermined timeline and leaving the future generations to postulate about her disappearance?_

No.

The Master's tampering must not be allowed to integrate itself into the established course of human history. That would be a predestination paradox! Alternate reality would create . . . actual reality! I have to resolve the inconsistency! It is the only way to get them back home!  
  
There were occasions when the Doctor really despised time travel. He thought he ought to take up a more linear, mundane hobby. Like stamp collecting. Or scrap-booking.  
Amelia allowed herself a gruff chuckle. "You and I really carry the torch for danger, don't we?"

She was still concerned, and the Doctor's words niggled at the back of her mind, but she kept her worries to herself. Fred was clambering over the side of the wing, trying to keep his balance on the bobbing plane, and she did not think it would do anyone any good to worry him more than he no doubt already was.

"Amelia, according to the instruments, Lindy's not hitting on all eight but the fuel leak is due to a small misalignment in the fuselage plating. I should be able to get her patched-up but I need to know if we have enough fuel . . ."

Fred Noonan, a pale, ruddy man in his mid 40s with large ears and an untidy fringe of thinning auburn hair, broke off from his status report and fixed the Doctor with a sour glare. The Doctor met his gaze unflinchingly.

"Oh. It's you again. Amelia's friend."

The Doctor nodded curtly. There was no love lost between the two men. "Good morning, Fred."

"It _is_ the Doctor, isn't it?"

"Don't you recognize me?"

"Amelia mentioned you could . . . change your face."

"Yes. I'm rather fond of this current one."

"Is this your doing?" Noonan encompassed the floating plane with a lazy wave of his hand.

The Doctor opened his mouth to let fly a slew of scientific gobbledygook, but the navigator stopped him with a raised hand.

"No, no, forget I asked. I don't want to know." He began to clamber under the wing and back towards the cockpit. He called over his shoulder, his voice as frosty as the harbor water, "I don't want to hear a single damn thing. Just tell Amelia what's what and get us out of here quick-like, right?"

The Doctor turned up his nose at Noonan's receding back. He said just loud enough for the navigator to hear, "Philistine."

He received a scowl in reply.

"Do you blame him?" asked Amelia. "Fred's a simple bird. He doesn't like things not going according to pla—do you mind not pointing that thing at my plane?!"

Inspector Fogg reeled back in surprise, fumbling the Colt 32 with which he had been prodding one of the pontoons of Lady Lindy. The Doctor smirked.

"Sorry, miss." Fogg reddened quickly in the cold air. "It's just that . . . the only plane I've ever seen is that paper contraption Wilbur and Orville Wright made down in North Carolina not two weeks ago. This beast is . . . well, it's—"

"It's from your future, Fogg." The Doctor snapped at him, "Never you mind about it."

Amelia was not so dismissive of the Doctor's company. She squinted at Fogg, trying to make some sense of him. "Let me guess . . . native New Yorker, going by the accent. Product of the current time. What are you? A mouthpiece? A bull?"

Fogg starred blankly at her. "I could have sworn you were from Philadelphia, miss, but half the things you say could stem from a different language entirely."

The Doctor chuckled. "There's a bit of a colloquialism gap between now and the 1920s, Mr. Fogg. She's asking about your occupation."

He straightened his hat, trying to reestablish a few gentlemanly graces. "I'm a private detective, Miss . . .?"

"Earhart. Amelia Earhart. So you're a gumshoe! And I'll bet my wings you're helping the Doctor out of necessity rather than choice, right?"

"Yes."

"And you've never met him before."

Fogg shook his head. "Before last night, I wouldn't have known the Doctor from a hole in the ground."

"Then I'll wish you the best of luck." Amelia grinned cheekily. "You're going to need it."

"I am beginning to discover that for myself, thanks," grumbled Fogg, but nobody heard him.

"Amelia," the Doctor jumped to the business at hand, "we need your help. And you're not going to like what I'm about to ask of you."

"We? You mean you and Hercule Poirot over there?"

The Doctor winced. "And . . . erm . . . Peri."

Amelia Earhart's expression turned as sour as Fred Noonan's. She crossed her arms again and fixed the Doctor with a milk-curdling scowl. "So she's still flying around with you, is she?"

"The point is," the Doctor continued unabated, "she's in trouble. Big trouble, if everything Fogg here says is the truth, and I highly suspect it is."

"Can't Miss Brown just dust out with her womanly charm?" asked Amelia with mock innocence.

The Doctor knitted his eyebrows. "No, as a matter of fact, she can't. I don't know what went on between you ladies the last time our paths crossed, but right now—"

"She called me an egocentric, self-righteous cow who was, and I quote," Earhart did a really poor imitation of Peri's voice, "'Nowhere near as cool as the history books promised!'"

"That was after you called her a walking pair of . . ." The Doctor's mouth hung open, unable to complete the sentence. He quickly changed the subject, ignoring Fogg's raised eyebrows. "Anyway, it's not just Peri I have to worry about. A friend of mine named Frobisher has been kidnapped by one of my oldest and deadliest enemies and is being held in a facility on Long Island."

"Oldest and deadliest enemies, eh? Is it those irritable pepper pots again, the Daleks?"

The Doctor's voice hardened. He said stonily, "Amelia, if it were the Daleks holding Peri and Frobisher, I would be wasting your time because they would already be dead. I would be in need of a few thousand pounds of trinitrotoluene, not an airplane. The time distortion has grounded the TARDIS. We need a fast mode of transport to get us to where we need to go. You are Peri's last hope."

"Don't say it like that, please. You'll put me off my lunch."

"It wouldn't be the first time you've saved our lives." The Doctor wheedled, "Like the ordeal with the Daleks, danger is fast approaching, Amelia. Will you be ready for it?"

She shuddered with a chill, recalling unpleasant memories. Despite her trepidation, there was a tug in her gut. Her limbs tingled with anticipation and a familiar rush of adrenaline sparked through her body. She sensed adventure with the anxiousness of a soldier before a battle, with the stolid apprehension of a pilot facing an oncoming storm. While she didn't care for Peri Brown herself, she knew the affection the Doctor held for her. His worry was etched across his face as plain as day, and though he did a fairly decent job of hiding it, the Doctor cared about Peri more than anyone could imagine.

_Right now_, Amelia Earhart decided, _he is as frantic as he's ever been. He's bordering on desperate, and in desperation is usually when folks make mistakes._

"Right." She nodded. "I guess we're hacking you up to Long Island."

"Where on Long Island?" called Fred Noonan from the cockpit of Lady Lindy. He had been listening to the Doctor and Amelia's exchanges, trying to glean some answers to the state of their predicament. As per usual when dealing with the Doctor, he succeeded only in generating more questions and not stifling his curiosity in the slightest.

"Shoreham." The Doctor answered tersely, "Wardenclyffe Laboratories, to be precise."

Amelia's grey eyes widened. "That name rings a bell."

She could not quite put a finger on it, but something told her she had heard that name before, circling around the flyboy here-say.

"That's the old Tesla site," clarified Fred from over his shoulder. "Free world energy or some such claptrap. All fell through the floor, of course."

"Nikola Tesla? The goofy fella with the pigeons?"

The Doctor looked a mite peeved. "Yes, the goofy fellow with the pigeons!"

"He's a little eccentric," Fogg piped in unhelpfully, trying to make himself of some use. Everyone ignored him.

"Oh cripes," Amelia made a sound halfway between a sigh and a laugh, "another adventure, Cat?"

"A very headstrong woman once told me that any adventure is worthwhile in itself."

Amelia cocked her head, smiling. "In that case, it would be my pleasure to take you to Shoreham. On one condition."

"Anything."

"You have to get us home. No excuses, no patsy scientific humdrum, nothing. Get me and Fred back to 1937 once we save your friends."

The Doctor shifted uncomfortably, but made the promise he knew lay out of his control. "On my honor. Cross my hearts."

"That's as swell as anything, I suppose. We'll make for Long Island once I've rechecked Fred's work with the fuselage."

There was an impertinent snort from Fred Noonan. Fogg raised his coppery eyebrows again in question.

The Doctor did not attempt to hide his irritation. "What now, Mr. Noonan? You said yourself Lady Lindy's fuselage was flight ready again. It shouldn't take Amelia long to confirm your diagnosis."

"I'm not worried about Lady Lindy," Noonan retorted, "I'm not worried about getting to Shoreham. I am worried, however, about what in hell's name we're getting ourselves into by helping you. I don't like you, Doctor. I don't trust you. It worries me that you couldn't give a damn about the safety of the people around you if it means getting at an end.

"In short, Doctor, I'm not worried about flying to Shoreham. I'm worried about what's going to be waiting for us when we get there."


	16. Chapter 15: Because You're Human

_"Our senses enable us to perceive only a minute portion of the outside world."_

_— Nikola Tesla, Electrical World and Engineer, January 7, 1905 —_

* * *

Peri had been unconscious for a little under two hours. It was hard for her to accept that so much could change in so little time.

Frobisher's death had ripped a blank, dimensionless expanse of loss in her gut. She had not yet started to file away the details into something her tortured psyche could come to terms with. It ached to brush up against the edges of the hurt, against the razor-sharp blades of despair that brought tears to her eyes as surely as any physical injury. Peri had locked herself within the sanctuary of her mind, shielding herself from the outside world. Her Wardenclyffe prison, even the presence of Nikola Tesla, was nothing more than a starlike pinprick in the firmament of her thoughts. Absolute withdrawal, a mask of dispassion, and denial were the only things that kept Peri from succumbing to blind, screaming grief.

Her anguish was made worse by the fact that her memories of Frobisher were as livid and fresh as new wounds. They were so recent that Peri could half-believe Tesla had been lying to her and Frobisher was still alive. Soon, very soon, the snarky Whifferdill was going to poke his head out from the shadows and start whistling "Daisy Daisy". Nothing had changed. Nothing could change. Somehow, in Peri's grief-fogged consciousness, she had fooled herself into thinking that so long as she believed Frobisher was still alive, the possibility was as good as real.

A metal canister clattered on Tesla's workbench amidst a slew of his hushed grumbling. Peri's head shot up from where she rested it on her arm; she glowered mercilessly at the inventor. Bitterness and hatred had begun to fill the raw spaces left after Frobisher's death, hatred towards the Master, Martin Cooper, Nikola Tesla, the Doctor, even herself—anyone she could conceive of that may have been even remotely responsible for her friend's demise. It was Tesla's presence in her prison, however, that eventually provided Peri with an outlet for her anger.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

Tesla did not look up from his tinkering, did not even acknowledge that he had heard Peri at all until she caught a murmured, "My work."

"Can you stop?"

"Why?"

"Because whatever you're doing is useless and annoying and inappropriate and dangerous and stupid . . . should I continue?"

"Keep that puerile attitude if you so desire, Miss Brown," he said stiffly, "in the meantime, continue your mourning without my participation. I have work to do."

"Do you even care?" She asked with the quiet restraint of one who was only just managing to keep herself from losing her temper, "Do you even care that Frobisher's dead?"

Tesla made a small noise in the back of his throat that could have been a curt laugh or a snort. "I care in that I am using his loss to galvanize myself into putting my skills to good use, instead of as an excuse to wallow in my own self pity."

Peri trembled with the effort of keeping herself from breaking his nose. "You may not understand the idea of caring about anyone besides yourself, Tesla, but the least you could do is try!"

"Why, Miss Brown?" he asked again.

"Because . . . b-b-because . . ."

Peri could not finish; she did not have a definitive answer. There was no logic motivating her, no concrete reason behind her behavior. As in so many cases with the Doctor, she could not find a way to make Tesla understand her feelings, the extent of her grief, why she needed the world to stop spinning in reality just as it had in her mind. Frobisher was dead—the sun should not be shining, the gulls should not be cawing, and Tesla should not be content to simply tinker.

_Why, Miss Brown?  
_  
She whispered, "Because you're human."

Her words finally struck a chord within the heart of the impassive inventor. Tesla placed his tools down with a featherlight tenderness and as he turned around, he met Peri's angry, tear-filled eyes.

"'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up'. I have respectfully left you alone to grieve, Miss Brown," Tesla intoned, "against my better judgement, but now is not that time to bury our dead and mourn them. You must hold your own life in the highest regard. Live for the future, do not dwell on the past."

"Bullshit."

He arched a coal-black eyebrow. "Do you doubt me?"

"Time isn't as clean and tidy as you make it out to be. It's fluid, it's variable, it's—"

"Nonuniform," finished Tesla with a sigh, remembering his earlier thoughts.

"Yeah. You can't just brush yourself down and forget the past, because the past never really goes away. When you're a time traveler, any random misadventure could land you right in the middle of the past again, right in the middle of the pain again. Don't insult me by saying my life is more important than the lives of those who're dead. Time doesn't heal all wounds, because there's still a Peri out there who's watching Frobisher die, still a Frobisher that's losing Francine, and still a Doctor that's killing himself by saving my life on Androzani Minor. You couldn't begin to understand the scope of that. You couldn't begin to understand the hopelessness of it all, to know that from a nonlinear perspective, you are forever living out the worst moments of your life!"

"Perhaps I can understand, Miss Brown, if only you would give me the chance."

"Bull_shit_. You may be as human as the next guy, Tesla, but you haven't got an ounce of humanity in you. You can't see beyond that which affects you. Before all of this messed-up crap I was even willing to like you a little! I'd heard about you from the history books, learned about all the amazing things you created. The Doctor admired you, and he rarely admits to admiring humans!

"When I got your message shoved into my head, I wanted to help you! Even now, after seeing who you really are, how you really feel about other people, I can't stay mad at you. Wanna know why? I feel sorry for you. I feel sorry for you because you couldn't care about anyone, couldn't love them, even if you wanted to. We're going to die here at the hands of the Master, and nobody is going to cry over your dead body. If you can dismiss Frobisher's death so trivially, then I'm damn well sure nobody's going to mourn you like I mourned him!"

Tesla's fists clenched. "I do not measure the value of my life by the number of people weeping at my funeral. If humankind can read by light, warm their baths, power their automobiles, and obtain the energy they need to sustain their livelihoods, then my own life was worth something. Can you say the same thing, Miss Brown?"

"Shut up."

"No," Tesla sniffed in disdain, "I didn't think so—"

"Shut up!" Peri hissed hoarsely and clamped a hand over his mouth.

Her face was taught with worry, and he realized that she was not, in fact, addressing his earlier retort. He pushed her palm away and asked, "Whatever for?"

"There's someone coming!"

Tesla strained his ears, listening carefully as their echoes faded into silence. He did indeed hear footfalls coming towards the door, multiple wooden insoles clattering on stone. Their squabble forgotten with the prospect of a shared danger, Tesla and Peri began to back away from the workbench and seek cover in the shadowed corners of the room. Peri, a moment ago ready to throttle the life out of Tesla's veiny neck, was now quite appreciative of his company.

The door creaked open, and the Master stood silhouetted against the outside light. His teeth were fiercely white in the pitch circle of his face.

He inquired casually, "Sleep well, Miss Brown?"

"Nikola," whispered Peri, her voice barely audible, "grab my arm. Don't let go of it whatever you do."

Tesla looked at her questioningly. "Why?"

"Because if you don't, I'm going to kill him."

She would need someone to stop her from trying to utterly destroy the Master for what he had done to Frobisher. Tesla did not ask any questions as his slim fingers slipped around her wrist.

"Did you kill him?" asked Peri, willing the pulsing red to subside from her vision. Tesla's grip grew tighter. "Did you kill Frobisher?"

The Master chuckled, as if for all the world he were sharing a private joke with a friend. "The Whifferdill? Now you, a botanist of all people, should understand the disadvantages that stem from feeding unnecessary mouths. Your friend Frobisher was surplus to requirement."

"So you shot him." She snarled venomously, "You shot him in cold blood."

"I will not squelch your prevalence for stating the obvious, Miss Brown, so yes. I did kill him. I shot him with a Gallifreyan staser bolt. Matter disintegration is a most agonizing death, but mercifully quick."

Peri hurled herself forward, screaming unrepeatable profanities. Tesla was taken aback by her ferocity, but he maintained a strong grip on her arms, holding her back from pummeling the Master into a pile of pulp on the floor. He credited his ability to overpower her to his size and strength alone; if Peri were a head taller her rage would have made her unstoppable.

"That is what he wants, Miss Brown," Tesla yelled in her ear, "do not give him the satisfaction."

"Attack me if you will, Peri," the Master goaded, walking forward until he hovered a mere inch or so away from her face. Tesla tried desperately to haul her away from him. "I would welcome it. I would enjoy seeing you try."

"I'll kill you, you son of a bitch." Peri was shaking with fury.

"Hmm, quite. Now if you're finished . . ." The Master snapped his fingers. The sound was clean and crisp. "We have important work to do. Tesla, come with me."  
Tesla steeled himself. Inching in front of Peri, and standing a good two heads taller than the Master, he was an imposing sight. His voice was dangerously low. It was not a tone the inventor employed often, but it had a terrifying effect when he did. "I will not leave Miss Brown."

Peri glanced up at him, thankful for the support, but fearing the consequences of his insubordination.

"I can look after myself, thanks," she protested, though her heart was telling her otherwise.

"Then I will forgo the Master's instructions simply for the sake of being difficult," Tesla said decisively, with what could be described as a pinch of smugness.

The Master's blasé expression vanished, and his grey eyes darkened until they were as black as a beetle's carapace. "You will do as you're told, Nikola Tesla. You . . . will . . . obey . . . me."

Pain arced across Tesla's skull, splitting the bone like a lightning bolt across the sky. His hands flew to his temples, pressing them hard into his skin in a futile attempt to silence the screams reverberating inside his head. Invariably, his will was crushed by the Master's dominance over his mind.

"I . . . obey . . ." moaned Tesla through gasps of pain.

It was remarkable how quickly Peri's disdain for the inventor disappeared. She cried, "Stop it! Leave him alone!"

Tesla managed to shake his head. "Do not . . . debase yourself . . . on my . . . account . . ."

"Shut up, you! Master, please stop hurting him! I'll do whatever you want, just leave him alone."

"Nikola Tesla is a cunning intellectual, who would seek to subvert my control over his mind given a half a chance. No, I think I will keep him at heel for the time being . . . as for you, my dear," the Master fixed those soporific black eyes on her, freezing her to the floor in a pique of blind, sheer terror, "Mr. Cooper will escort you to the experimental theatre."

Cooper melted out of the shadows from Peri's right. She did not know how long he had been standing there, or when he had left the Master's side and snuck up alongside her own, but his presence sent a thrill of fear racing down her spine. His face was bruised and the skin around his shattered nose had purpled until he looked more Ogron than human. His eyes flickered with a savage, bestial fire that was certainly Ogron-like. Though he was careful not to touch her, which was definitely a change from the last time their paths had crossed, his hand fondled a bulge at his hip holster that told Peri all she needed to know.

"I don't have to do anything, you realize," Peri pointed out with more bravery than she felt. "You won't kill me; now that Frobisher's dead you've lost a bargaining chip."

The Master conceded, "You would be making a fair point, Miss Brown, if you were to disregard the fact that I have the means at my disposal to make you do as I see fit."

She did not say anything, which the Master took as his cue to elaborate.

"As I warned you during our little telepathic tête-à-tête aboard the Doctor's TARDIS—don't look so startled, I erased the memory from your mind—I possess the power to twist your thoughts into such abominations that no self-respecting sentient being would dare clap eyes on you, never mind pity you. I could match your brain waves to mine, control you utterly. I could crush out your conscience like a fly between my fingers.

"Unfortunately, your minute human psyche would try to fight my little psychokinetic needle and the battle would irreparably damage your mind. Or, to put it more accurately, vegetate it. The Time Jump will operate most efficiently using a human with her brain intact, but do not think the obstacles are so enormous that I wouldn't try . . . if tested."

Peri glanced at Tesla, who quivered in fear and agony but was unable to move due to the Master's control over his limbs. She realized that while she may have lost one of the most precious things in her life, Frobisher, Tesla was having his most beloved assets wrenched away from him as well. He was an inventor—he flourished on his creativity and individuality. The Master was taking that which made Tesla unique and crushing it into dust. The anguish on Nikola Tesla's face was as real as her own in the wake of Frobisher's death.

He was truly suffering.

"If I promise to cooperate, and make Tesla swear to do whatever you want, will you let him go?"

"Swear on what?" Cooper spat, "Your good looks?"

Peri glared at the large man standing beside her, burying her wariness beneath scathing sarcasm. "Oh, hi Martin. How's your nose? You sound a little nasal, maybe you should invest in penicillin when it's invented in twenty five years."

The Master's fixating glower was the only thing that kept Martin Cooper from shooting Peri between the eyes then and there.

"My illustrious colleague does raise a valid point," interrupted the Time Lord before Cooper could act rashly. "How do I know you and Tesla will keep your word?"

Peri straightened her shoulders, wincing as her back creaked and her throbbing headache intensified. "If we double-cross you, feel free to do whatever you like to my mind. I won't fight, so you won't damage it at all for this "Time Jump" thing. If we try anything, you can turn us both into your little puppets, to do with however your majesty pleases."

The Master's wicked smile played across his lips. Though he barely stood a few inches higher than Peri, he suddenly seemed very, very tall.

"I think you and I have an understanding, Perpugilliam." He blinked once, and Tesla's lanky form slumped forward.

Peri tried to rush over to prevent him from falling onto the hard floor, but Cooper's paw kept her firmly planted in place. The Master beckoned once, and Tesla, shaking his head to clear the pain away, took the cue to follow. As he stalked past Peri, he shot her a glare Thomas Edison would have been proud of. It was a glare that could make a mere mortal feel as though everything that composes his being amounts to little more than a raindrop in a vast ocean. Peri winced under his gaze, as if she had been slapped. Tesla's fury at her impotence, at her stupid bravery and willingness to assist the Master, was enough to make her knees shaky.

"You fool. You simple-minded little fool," he breathed through clenched teeth.

Peri sneered at him, her earlier enmity towards him returning, "You're welcome for saving your sorry life."

"You should have let me be. Your "heroism" is making the situation worse!"

"Now now, Tesla, Miss Brown, let's try to be civil. I can't bear it when my guests argue." The Master considered his prisoners with reserved amusement. "Tesla, we will set up the electromagnetic coil and ensure it is correctly connected to the Wardenclyffe transmitter tower. Mr. Cooper, you will escort Miss Brown to her appropriate place in the main laboratory."

"So confident of success you can let me out of your sight, huh?" goaded Peri.

"In fact, I rather believe I am. Impending victory does have that effect on people."

"Impending destruction, more like it! The Doctor's going to come. Just watch, he's still out there. He'll stop you!"

The Master seemed genuinely pleased she had brought up the subject of the Doctor. "Oh, didn't I mention, Miss Brown? The Doctor has met with something of an unfortunate accident back in New York, which as it happens, had nothing whatsoever to do with me."

Peri's blood ran cold. "What do you mean?"

"My . . . agents, in Manhattan claim they saw the Doctor and an associate of his boarding a ferry at the Whitehall station, no doubt to come to Long Island to rescue you. The ship he was on malfunctioned in the middle of the harbor. The vessel sank.

"Every soul aboard was killed. Including, regrettably, the Doctor."


	17. Chapter 16: Falling And Missing

_"You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension."_

_— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

"There is an art to flying, or rather a knack. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss."

"What are you blathering about, Doctor?" Noonan barked from over his shoulder, sparing the Doctor a single baleful glare before he was forced to turn his attention back to Lady Lindy's controls.

"Nothing that should interest a philistine such as yourself, Mr. Noonan." The Doctor said smugly, crossing his arms and keeping his Douglas Adams to himself, "Carry on and don't mind me."

Noonan opened his mouth to retort, but his copilot bade him hold his tongue.

"Keep us level, Mr. Noonan." Amelia ordered, pulling up on the control wheel. The Doctor disappeared from Noonan's mind as he obediently eased up on the throttle.

The weather had gotten progressively worse since Lady Lindy's takeoff from New York Harbor.

The wind continued to snatch at the plane despite the crew's efforts to straighten their flight path. Earhart and Noonan knocked their heads against the consoles as an updraft buffeted the aircraft across the turbulent sky. Amelia grasped the joystick in bone-white hands, her mousy face set into a mask of concentration as she fought to control the plane. Fred Noonan kept his eyes glued on the altimeters and the fuel pressure, hoping that his fiddling with the twin engines had been enough to rectify any damage to the structural integrity of the fuselage they may have sustained coming through the time rift. He felt his stomach roll as another wave of turbulence shook the aircraft. The buzz of the two propellers cutting through the icy air was paramount to the sound of chopping vegetables in a thunderous rainstorm. The slicing blades threw up torrents of moisture which crystalized on the cockpit windows, obscuring Amelia's vision of the bleak landscape below.

Lady Lindy, plus her passenger manifest of Earhart, Noonan, Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg, and the Doctor, was flying up the eastern seaboard of Long Island: the dark, mysterious Atlantic Ocean lay to their right, and the beaches of Fire Island lay to their left. The whitecaps of the ocean were blurred by a curtain of snow. A winter storm had snuck up the coast, a Nor'Easter of unfeasible strength for its relatively small size. Its winds and pounding sleet ripped at the small plane with relentless ferocity. The Doctor and Fogg were belted and secure in the passenger cabin, but Earhart and Noonan were forced to take their chances in the cramped cockpit, at the mercy of the elements. As the craft jolted from side to side, the Time Lord braced himself on the back of the seat in front of him. He would have lost his confidence, as well as his modest breakfast, if it were anyone other than Amelia Earhart were flying the Lockheed Electra through the tempest.

"I don't want to die." Moaned a meek voice from across the passenger cabin. "I have so much left to do. I have a life left to live! Albeit a meager one, but a life nevertheless!"

The Doctor struggled to turn his head against the seat belts, but he managed to flash Fogg what he hoped was a reassuring smile. The detective had gone very green around the gills. He was hunched over and holding his stomach, not daring for the life of him to glance out of the window and onto the landscape below. The Doctor wondered if barf-bags were standard-issue for 1930s aircraft . . .

"Oh, chin up, Fogg. Stiff upper lip and all that." The Doctor smirked, shouting to be heard over the howl of the storm and the whir of the engines, "Don't tell me you're afraid of heights!"

Fogg glared daggers at him. "I prefer to keep my feet planted firmly on the ground, if it's all the same. If God had meant for man to fly He would have given us wings. This is unnatural! How is this thing even staying in the air?! It should be too heavy! We ought to plummet out of the sky and meet our fate smeared like an oil slick on the rocks below!"

"Don't be so cynical! You should be honored! You're only the third man in America to have ever flown in an aircraft! I daren't think of what it's doing to the Web of Time, but you should enjoy the opportunity while we retain our ignorance!"

Fogg shuddered. "The Wright brothers can keep the honor for themselves, so far as I'm concerned."

The Doctor's mouth twisted into a disapproving scowl. "I've met invertebrates with more backbone than you. If you can handle a Kronosaurus in a flimsy tug boat, I'm sure you can handle a little high-altitude turbulence."

The plane chose that opportune moment to drop a few hundred feet out of the air, leaving the passengers' stomachs far behind. Fogg tried and failed to hold in a whimper of terror.

"You can hardly claim that we "handled" that Kronosaurus, Doctor. And quite frankly, I wasn't expected to ride the damn thing at the time!"

"I'm all ears if you have any better ideas for getting to Wardenclyffe before the start of next week." The Time Lord said with mock sweetness.

"Yeah . . . the power of prayer, because that seems to be the only thing keeping this contraption in the air as it is!"

The Doctor gave up trying to talk the airsick Fogg out of his maudlin thoughts. Ignoring the detective, he leant forward in his seat, elbows on his knees, and bellowed towards the cockpit, "How are we doing up there, Amelia?"

She didn't turn her head from the frosty windows. "Not as well as I kinda hoped for, Cat, or as well as you'd led me to believe. The wind's a doozy and the snow seems to be coming in faster than a highbinder on a looker."

The Doctor winced at her racy colloquialisms. "In English, if you would be so kind?"

Noonan twisted around, his expression cold. "According to the instruments, Doctor, there's a small but powerful snowstorm tugging at our tailwind. Those black clouds over New York Harbor this morning proved to be a little more than an obstruction of the sunrise, a fact which you conveniently failed to mention to us at the time, I might so boldly add."

"This is hardly my fault! How was I supposed to know the rain from earlier this morning would freeze into snow? Besides, my foreknowledge would not have changed anything!"

"It sure as hell changes a lot of things, man!" Noonan snapped angrily, "I said Lady Lindy was ready to fly to Wardenclyffe, not ready to battle conditions as dangerous as the ones we encountered when we left New Guinea!"

Amelia piped in, "I have to admit, Doc, a little forewarning wouldn't have gone amiss. I haven't a blind one how I'm going to set her down on a weedy little peninsula in these conditions."

"This storm isn't natural!" The Doctor argued, realization alighting his face, "Don't you see? It shouldn't be happening at all. The atmosphere was ruptured by the time rift that brought you here! The Earth is desperately trying to repair the tear, and the weather is a side effect of the self-administered temporal deterrents."

"Time rift? What're you talking about . . . no, no, forget it. Drop it." Noonan whirled back in his seat and stared steely-eyed at the front window of the cockpit, determined to disregard the Doctor's words, "Don't say a thing. I don't need this. Not now."

"Need it or not, Fred, it's real enough. We've been taken for a ride back to 1903." Amelia said sadly.

"That doesn't matter."

"Oh? I may be being ignorant, but I thought it sorta did."

"No, it doesn't matter because the Doctor is going to take us back after all this, back to our own time. Back to my wife Mary. Isn't that right, Doctor?" Fred Noonan's voice was soft but dangerous. His tone alone was enough to leave any threats unspoken.

The Doctor felt a prickly heat climb the back of his neck. Noonan was only human, but he could extrude a terrifying aura that made skin pimple into gooseflesh. He muttered, "I'll do what I can."

"That's not good enough."

"It's the best you're going to get, under the circumstances! Take my word and take a chance, or throw my advice into the wind and stay here for the rest of your life. It's your choice, but I swear that if you help me now, help me save Peri and Frobisher, I will do everything in my power to get the crew of Lady Lindy back to 1937."

"You'd better, Time Lord." Noonan hissed.

Amelia fell silent, not wanting to start an argument, particularly not one a thousand feet in the air in the middle of a Nor'Easter.

Fogg emerged from his existential conundrum and gave the Doctor a funny look. "Time Lord? Is that what he called you?"

The Doctor pinched the bridge of his nose. "Best not to worry about that now, Fogg."

"It's either you or this flying death trap, and I'd much prefer worrying about you."

"I'm flattered," The Doctor said drily.

"You said you were peripatetic . . . that you traveled a lot. How far exactly? You talk so much about "time distortions", about other planets, about things I couldn't hope to understand . . ."

"Really, it's not all that important."

"It's important because I don't know who you are, Doctor. But I'm not entirely sure I want to find out."

The Doctor forced a smile. "Then stop worrying about it so much, old chap."

"Are you," Fogg swallowed through a lump in his throat, ". . . a visitor? An alien?"

"Alien is such a derogatory term, Mr. Fogg."

"You are, aren't you! You're a little green man from Mars." Fogg sank even further into his seat, burying his head in his hands, "God, as if this day couldn't get any worse . . ."

"'Little green man from Mars' my foot! I'm nothing of the sort!" The Doctor huffed indignantly, "I am a Time Lord, a Gallifreyan. I hail from a planet a good twelve million light years from here, in the constellation of Kasterberous. Judging by your blank expression, you have never heard of it before, and while your ignorance offends me it certainly doesn't surprise me."

"Scratch what I said earlier, I could do with this plane crashing right about now . . . do you mean to tell me you're not human?"

"Yes."

"Then why do you look like a human?"

"Why do _you_ look like a Time Lord?"

"How can I understand what you're saying? Are you speaking Time Lord-ese now?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes heavenward. "I am speaking _immaculate_ English, Mr. Fogg. My knowledge of language is unrivaled!"

"But if you are an alien, why do you sound like you're from England?"

"Look, stop asking so many silly questions!" The Doctor exclaimed, "You were perfectly fine with our partnership arrangement five minutes ago! Why should a few particulars about my biology change anything?"

"A few partic— _you are an alien_! This is a bit much, even for me! First river monsters, then flying machines from the future, and now it turns out my only ally is a man from space!"

"Mr. Fogg?"

"What?"

"Do shut up. You're working yourself into a fine old state, and the last thing Miss Earhart needs right now is your being ill all over the upholstery of her plane!"

Fogg's mouth snapped shut. Though he dropped his string of inane inquiries, a hooded, suspicious light began to darken his colorless eyes.

"I can't trust you as far as I can throw you." He meant to murmur unheard into his coat collar, but the Doctor's keen ears picked up the words anyway.

"That's funny . . ."

"What is?"

The Doctor looked up and fixed Fogg with a hard blue stare. He said stonily, "That's the same thing I said about you, Mr. Fogg, when we first met. Perhaps our distrust of one another can prove that we are both, in fact, trustworthy individuals. We are as of yet ignorant of the deception of the other. The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them, wouldn't you say? Ernest Hemingway taught me that."

Fogg turned away and stared at his muddy, scuffed shoes. His long-fingered hands were clasped in front of him, as if in prayer. He didn't answer the Doctor for a very long time.

"What choice do I have?" He finally whispered.

The Doctor gave a wan smile, but said nothing.

_What choice do any of us have, in the end? We are all servants of pomp and circumstance, unable to shape one's own motivations never mind the motivations of other people. But if there's one thing I've learned during my 900 years of time and space, having no one to trust is a very lonely business. As you are no doubt already aware, Mr. HarmMeTerribly Fogg._

He didn't know how long he sat there and thought about the consequences of distrust, but eventually something shook the Doctor free from his innermost contemplations. Something undefinable. Something eerie. Something wrong.

There was utter silence, a deep, unnatural stillness like time put on pause. The plane had stopped shaking. The snow had stopped blowing. The wind had stopped howling. The sky outside was as black as pitch, the firmament depthless and indiscernible like the vast expanses of the ocean. The Doctor shivered with a sudden, permeating cold.

"What's going on?" Noonan whispered, the silence forcing his voice to the same soundless pitch, "Doctor?"

"I don't know. But something is wrong. Something is very, _very_ wrong."

Amelia grimaced. "You could try being a mite more specific, Cat. It was the middle of the afternoon a sec ago."

"I can't, but I know that there are always _things_ in the universe, Amelia. Sounds, sights, smells, chaos and calm, law and order. No matter how many unspeakable horrors make themselves known, there is always insurmountable good fighting the forces of evil. The battle is unbalanced, that is why we are able to perceive one force or the other, why we have good days and bad days, and why we experience joy and sorrow, oftentimes one at the expense of the other. But now . . . I cannot feel anything. There is nothing beyond those windows that you or me or anyone else in this universe can hope to understand."

Fogg's jaw hung open like a codfish's. Sheer terror had frozen his voice deep in his throat.

"Should we be frightened, Cat?" Amelia Earhart breathed through barely parted lips.

The Doctor did not hesitate in his response. "Very."

"Captain_—_"_  
_

"Not now, Fred. Doctor, I'm being serious now, what is it we're facing_—_"

"Amelia!"

She whipped her head around and snapped in irritation, "What is it, Mr. Noonan?"

He jabbed an angular finger at the front window of the cockpit, into the black void beyond the plane. "Look."

Amelia did look. So did the Doctor and P.I. Fogg. And all three of them felt their hearts plummet into the pits of their stomachs at the sight.

"Oh, cripes." Earhart muttered.

A single globe of light pulsed in the blackness. At first the Doctor thought he and the crew of Lady Lindy were beholding a single, lonely lighthouse perched on the edge of the peninsula. But the lamp was not rotating; the light was unwavering and as searingly bright as a burning magnesium strip or a supernova. The ball of utter white rippled in the dark. Waves of ghostly pale light emanated from the source point and soared into the sky like the ribbons of an eldritch aurora. They passed through the cabin of the plane and through the bodies of the passengers, and the Doctor shivered as he felt it pass through him. He was reminded of another source of light, of the first chronon energy bombardment aboard the TARDIS. His head began to ache and a familiar pain began to build in the recesses of his stomach like a physical sickness. Every hair stood up on the back of his hands. Every Time Lord sense tingled.

"Doctor, I think I'm going to be sick." Fogg promptly informed him, a hand clasped over his froggy mouth.

"Not in my plane, Mister!" Amelia barked from the cockpit, "Keep us on course, Mr. Noonan."

Her copilot's eyes bugged. "You can't be serious!"

"I'm being _very _serious, Mr. Noonan."

"We can't just . . . go flying into that thing! It's like flying into the sun! We won't be able to see!"

"Yes we will. I am a Time Lord, I can lead you through the ocular interference. My senses are particularly sensitive to this sort of stimuli." The Doctor, to Earhart and Noonan's horror, had unbuckled himself from his seat and crawled up to join them in the cockpit. His head rested between their arm rests. "That light up ahead of us is Wardenclyffe. We are in the eye of a potential temporal storm."

"It could be the Pearly Gates, Doctor, and that wouldn't change anything!" Noonan shouted, his patience waning, "If we don't see, we don't fly. Bar none."

"Peri is there, Fred. We are flying into an artron energy field, emanating from what I assume is the wireless transmitter at Wardenclyffe Tower. So long as we stay inside the body of the plane, and do not expose ourselves for long once we land, the energy should not harm us. It is a purely potential phenomena, not yet powerful enough to explode."

"Explode?!" Fogg ogled, "That ball of light is a _bomb_?"

The Doctor corrected, "A time bomb, in the literal sense. Once that light expands beyond its safe little bubble around the Wardenclyffe transmitter tower, it will engulf not only the physical manifestations of Earth, but its temporal earmarks as well. The kinetic form of artron energy is chronon energy, _time_ energy, and the history and future of any object that comes into contact with the cataclysm will be rewritten!"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Amelia interjected, "but it sounds rather beefy."

"_Beefy_." The Doctor laughed sardonically, "Ace, only you could make light of oncoming Armageddon."

_Oncoming Armageddon, a plane flying towards it at hundreds of kilometers an hour, and I haven't got a single plan to not get us all killed once we reach our journey's inevitable end . . ._

Breaking the veil of utter stillness both inside and outside the plane, a red warning light began to blink on Noonan's controls. The cockpit was soon filled with the sound of a warning klaxon. Noonan's dour complexion waned a few shades until he was as pale as a proverbial ghost. He flicked a few switches on his overhead monitor, trying to locate the source of the problem.

"What in hell . . ?" He murmured, and let out an involuntary gasp as he beheld the gauge for the fuel pressure.

"Mr. Noonan, we're losing our forward engines!" Amelia informed him gravely. As if to accentuate her point, Lady Lindy dropped ever slightly, and her nose pointed inexorably towards the point of blinding white light on the horizon.

"Fuel pressure is . . . dropping! 203 kilopascals and decreasing steadily."

"Engage ejector pumps. See if you can knick any fuel from the secondary tanks."

"That's a negative, Captain." Noonan looked grimly at the readings of the fuel flow meters. "We utilized our emergency supply on our approach to Howland Island. We haven't got any fuel!"

"Amelia, our altitude is dropping." The Doctor noted, albeit rather unhelpfully.

"Keep your shirt on, Cat." Earhart began to disengage the twin engines. "I know what I'm doing."

"By shutting down the engines?" Fogg exclaimed in horror as he saw the two twin propeller blades slow and then stop altogether.

"Our poor approach to Howland Island wasn't due to a problem with the structural integrity of the fuselage, Mr. Fogg. Our fuel tanks seem to have sprung a leak." Amelia's eyes never left the window as she spoke.

"So you're going to try to glide us down," the Doctor finished, "ride the wind and put us down like a fiberglass sailplane."

"I don't know what fiberglass is, but you've hit the nail on her bonce, for all its essential worth."

Fogg nearly swallowed is tongue. "Without something to keep us up, we'll just plummet out of the sky!"

The Doctor's grimace was one of unbridled despair. "Save me from those who have never taken an introductory course in aerospace engineering and fluid dynamics! Lady Lindy's aerodynamic build and forward momentum will allow her to retain enough of her initial velocity for Amelia to make a controlled landing."

"Controlled?!" Earhart snorted, "I'd be heartily surprised if I don't end up ripping off the landing gear!"

The Doctor nodded grimly, conceding the point, "If the plane tips at all, we will shear off a wing and most likely blow up the entire craft when the remaining fuel ignites."

The crew of the Lady Lindy got very quiet very quickly. The Doctor bit his tongue, wishing he didn't have the urge to elaborate quite so often in quite so much gruesome detail. Fogg looked just short of passing out. Even the stalwart, dispassionate Fred Noonan had begun to quiver slightly like a leaf in the autumn.

"Well," Amelia Earhart broke the silence as she clicked her aviator goggles into place, "best not tip the plane then. Strap yourselves in, gentlemen. This is going to be a bumpy ride."


	18. Chapter 17: The Time Jump

_"Some day, but not at this time, I shall make an announcement of something that I never once dreamed of."_

___—_ Nikola Tesla, New York Sun, July 17, 1903 —

* * *

Peri's head shot up to gaze towards the ceiling. She searched the shadows for something she couldn't name. "What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Didn't you hear it?" Peri insisted, "A sort of buzzing sound, like a helicopter . . . It's gone now, probably swallowed by the fog."

Cooper's words dripped with malice. He spat, "If you attempt to distract me, Miss Brown, attempt to take me for a fool . . ."

Against her better sense, the corner of Peri's mouth twitched into a cheeky smirk. "You don't need my help for that. Although, my last escape attempt didn't exactly do wonders for your face, did it?"

"You are trying the very limits of my patience."

"Your little bad cop routine may have scared me when we first met, but not anymore." Peri said bitterly, "I've lost my two best friends in less than two hours, and the Master says you're not allowed to hurt me. The way I see it, I've got nothing to lose. Oddly enough, it's very liberating. I don't fear death anymore."

Cooper's hand on her shoulder got a fraction of a degree stronger. His grip tightened until his fingers dug into the fabric of her dress. "Who said anything about dying? I am going to keep you alive for a very long time, my dear. Mark my words, when the Master no longer requires you, I will have you _begging_ for death. It will not only become a non-fear, it will become your only hope of liberation."

Peri didn't give him the satisfaction of rebutting his threats. She hardly expected the Master to keep her alive long enough for Cooper to quench that sadistic thirst of his, anyway. Her inevitable demise was a manner of victory in of itself. The least the Master could do at this hopeless point was grant her the final reprieve, the final dignity, of a quiet death.

"There is nothing you could say or do to me that can frighten me, Cooper." Peri sighed hollowly, "You may as well threaten a scarecrow, a husk full of straw, for all the satisfaction you'd get."

"We shall see, Miss Brown. We shall see."

They continued on in silence, prisoner and captor. The halls of Wardenclyffe were as cramped as Peri remembered: cold and clammy like a concrete tube left derelict in an afternoon rainstorm. She had no doubt Wardenclyffe had been a state-of-the-art institution in its heyday, a marvel of engineering, but the labyrinthian tower had been allowed to fall into disrepair and decay under the Master's rule. Peri couldn't imagine the evil renegade sparing much thought to his lair's aesthetics.

The corridor connecting Tesla's prison to the main Wardenclyffe laboratory was a skating rink of frozen dampness. Moisture clung to the walls in pearled necklaces. Beads of dank water swam through the cracks between the bricks and plopped into brackish, stagnant pools on the floor. Peri's frozen nose and numbed fingers ached in the damp cold; every slimy rivulet and every whisper of icy wind cut through her clothes and skin and froze the marrow of her bones. The wettest of the floor stones were lidded by a fine sheen of black ice, on which Peri's boots scrabbled for purchase. Her chilled limbs moaned in protest as she slid, lost her balance, and pushed her numb hands hard against the brick walls to steady her fall. Cooper, for the briefest of moments, released his grip on her shoulder just to watch and savor her hopeless battle on the ice.

"Careful, Miss Brown," he sneered, "you could fall."

Peri cried out in pain as Cooper kicked her shins out from underneath her, much in the same way she had kicked him upon their first encounter in New York. Unlike Cooper, however, Peri felt the full force of the blow. Her legs buckled and she lost her purchase on both the icy floor and on the slimy wall. Before she could correct her balance, she found herself in a crumpled heap on the ground. The shame burned; her eyes stung with unshed tears of pain and humiliation. But, for whatever little pride she had left, Peri Brown did not cry.

Cooper noted her expression of stalwart defiance. "I wouldn't want to make this too easy."

"You can't hurt me." Warned Peri, acutely aware of the scarcity of her argument.

"Hurt?! This is not "hurting" you, Miss Brown! I am simply establishing your position in future affairs. "Hurting" you will come later."

"If you think the Master will let you _torture_ me after he's done this "time jump" thing, you're crazier than he is!"

"Madness is in the eyes of the beholder. And the Master does not control me."

Peri snorted. "You're as much a prisoner here as I am. Face it, _Martin_ . . . the Master will throw you to the dogs when your usefulness runs its course!"

"The Master values my skills as a killer, and as a follower of organized chaos, too much to forsake my services."

She shook her head as she got slowly and unsteadily to her feet. "Not a chance. You're delusional. You're loony."

"Your concern for my safety is touching," Cooper smiled sickeningly, "though misguided. Perhaps I can make things a little clearer . . . after all, a flawless, perfect killing demands a level of _intimacy_ with the victim."

Peri's shaking hands clenched into fists. "You don't frighten me."

"Yes, I do. I terrify you." He roughly pulled Peri closer, until her hair brushed his bloodless lips. He whispered in her ear, "And rightfully so."

"Mr. Cooper!" A bellowing voice echoed around the tower, "Where is Miss Brown?!"

The sound of the Master's barking jolted Cooper away from Peri as if he had been electrocuted. Keeping her at arm's length, but in a grip like an iron vice, the assassin steered her down the remaining length of the icy corridor and towards the lightened doorway at the end of the hall.

They emerged in a space more vaulted cathedral than high school science lab. A caged walkway circled the perimeter, hugging the wall like a girdle. The ceiling, which must have spiraled into the interior of the main Wardenclyffe transmitter tower, disappeared amidst a haze of lantern smoke and shadow. Dissuaded from guessing the dimensions of the room, Peri contented herself with trying to make sense of the mad laboratory lying at its center. Glowing computer consoles, intricate cabling jobs, and anachronistic 19th Century equipment was jumbled in a perpetual state of structured chaos. The bleeps and whirs of advanced processing machines mixed with the clanking cogs of clockwork gears. The boggling steampunk arrangement obviously held some manner of organization, but like a string of computer code or a complex mathematical proof, Peri couldn't begin to make hide nor hair of the subtle pandemonium. How Martin Cooper, a product of the current time period, was able to handle such a culture shock, Peri didn't know.

The machine nestled at the heart of the laboratory was what inevitably drew her wandering eyes. It was a metal sphere, large enough to accommodate a medium-sized person standing up or Nikola Tesla in a crouch. It was a hollow, globular cage around which pulsed an electrostatic field that made the small hairs on Peri's neck stand on end. Inside the sphere rested a black gearbox, from which protruded two live electrical outlets. The outlets were shaped uncomfortably like gaming joysticks, moulded specifically to fit a pair of human hands.

"Are you suitably impressed, Perpugilliam Brown?" The Master, standing just beyond the electrical field emanating from the coils of the metal sphere, addressed Peri up on the surrounding walkway.

"Suitably horrified, more like it." Peri murmured, eyes wide.

The Master's keen hearing picked up her words, and he inclined his head, as if accepting a compliment. "Mr. Cooper, would you escort our distinguished guest to the Time Jump station, please?"

"Hang on!" Peri tried shrugging off Cooper's restraining hand, and failed. "Where's Nikola? You swore he'd be safe so long as we cooperated!"

"On a first name basis now, are we?" The Master's amusement shone in his cold, cruel eyes, "Mr. Tesla is elsewhere, occupied with some of the more technical aspects if the device. It is, after all, his invention."

Peri didn't attempt to hide her skepticism. She, for a small time, began to act her old self and argue profusely as Cooper manhandled her towards the lower level of the laboratory. "Tesla didn't invent _this_!"

"Arguing history with a Time Lord is most unwise, Miss Brown."

"But he didn't! How could he? The technology used in this thing is years beyond what Tesla used in the early 20th Century!"

The Master rose to her challenge. "In the year 1895, Nikola Tesla conducted research with a new step-up electrical transformer. His experimental work resulted in his first indications that time and space could be influenced using highly charged, rotating magnetic fields. Part of this revelation came about from his transmission of electrical energy through the atmosphere, a practice he had been involved with since his first inclinations towards the invention of the radio."

Peri absorbed all this. "So what does that have to do with the gadget you're standing next to?"

"Everything, Miss Brown." The Master savored the metallic sphere with a look that could be construed as one of adoration, of reverence, "This device _is_ Tesla's alternating current transformer, salvaged from his Liberty Street laboratory. The same device that, on the 13th of March, Tesla used to breach the Time Vortex. Tesla, on contact with the resonating electromagnetic charge emanating from the transformer, the same field charge you see surrounding the cage now, found himself outside his timeframe reference. He could see the immediate past, the present, and the future, all at once."

"The Doctor told me that time travel was invented in 1895 . . . and this is the machine that did it." Peri muttered, in awe despite herself. She was almost thankful the Doctor wasn't there to say, 'I told you so'. Almost.

The Master added, "The same model, albeit with a few, ah . . . tweaks, I think you Americans would say."

Peri and Cooper had reached the lower level of the laboratory. They stood beside the Master and a safe distance outside the flickering periphery of the hollow sphere. The electromagnetic field was strong enough to make Peri's short hair stand up.

"So . . . what? You want to repeat Tesla's time travel experiments? Send him back . . . or forward, again?" Peri shook her head irritably, wracking her brains for an explanation. "No, that doesn't make sense. You have your TARDIS. Why send Nikola Tesla back in time with a steampunked lash-up when you have a more powerful time machine of your own?"

"I suppose you could call it the start of a particularly ambitious business venture." The Master countered, "I plan to _market_ Tesla's alternating current transformer."

Peri's head spun. Whatever she had been expecting the Master to say, that was not it. "_Market it_?" She parroted incredulously.

"Sell it to the highest bidder, most likely one of the petulant factions massing for war on the European continent. You humans are the most detestable of bickerers; right now, such conflicts as the Russo-Japanese War, the Moroccan Crises, the Balkan Crises, and the Thousand Day's War are raging across the globe. Any warring party with common sense would no doubt be interested in a time machine to assist their militaristic efforts. And, of course, the United States continues to show a powerful interest."

"But you can't! You'd be rewriting histor_—_" Peri realized what she was saying. She remembered arriving in New York in the year 1910, but mistaking the landscape for something out of the '60s. She remembered visiting an alternate Earth propelled forward 50 years in technological development, a history twisted out of shape and a future damned to entropic chaos. Understanding dawned on her like a tidal wave, crushing any hope of argument. "Oh."

"Finally, you begin to understand." The Master chuckled darkly, "The Doctor never did keep the most intellectually-stimulating of company. Ironic that _you_ should come to outlive _him_. And if you don't mind my saying so, you have a remarkable propensity for inspiring martyrdom in others, my dear. Frobisher, the Doctor . . . _both_ Doctors."

Peri's heart twinged in her chest. "Stop it. This wasn't my fault."

The Master arched an eyebrow. "No? You are responsible for the death of two of the Doctor's incarnations, Miss Brown: once in wincingly clichéd act of self-sacrifice, and now in a desperate attempt to save your life. Enlighten me as to how his fate is _not_ your fault."

Peri found that she couldn't answer, no matter how hard she tried to fool herself into thinking otherwise. She stared miserably at the floor, not meeting the Master's eyes. Her face had gone sickly grey with guilt.

"The Doctor is dead, and your last hope of salvation died with him." The Master beckoned Cooper bring Peri closer. The Time Lord tucked a finger under her chin, and tilted her head up until their eyes locked. He spoke softly, "I have broken Nikola Tesla, one of the greatest minds of Earth's history. He is enthralled to my will. It was not difficult to break you, Miss Brown. It was very, very easy."

Peri couldn't offer any argument to the contrary. Any fire that may have flickered feebly in the recesses of her soul had been gutted.

One of the many doors leading out of the main laboratory opened, and Nikola Tesla made his entrance. The inventor's worn clothing was burnt, his fingers red from soldering wires in the belly of the Time Jump mechanism. He was fixated upon his transformer, before the group with Peri at its center caught his attention. Despite his inherent disproval of her attitude and the remarkably stupid way she had bargained with the Master for his release, Tesla was concerned for Peri's safety. In a way, he felt responsible for what happened to her. It was him, after all, who had been forced to first make contact with her, plant the idea to come to Wardenclyffe and rescue him in her mind.

"I trust she has not been harmed?" Tesla called from the walkway, fixing a shadowed pair of stormy blue eyes on Martin Cooper in particular.

"So long as the machine has been calibrated as per my instructions and your predetermined specifications have been met, Tesla." The Master released Peri and thumbed her towards the metal cage. "Get her into that, Cooper."

Cooper cast a wary glance over the blazing arcs of electricity. A frown creased his granite features. "In _there_? Won't it . . . be painful?"

The Master snorted derisively, "Oh, Mr. Tesla's dilapidated machine's bark is worse than its bite, I assure you."

"How kind." Tesla grumbled. Peri didn't even acknowledge the inventor's rare spark of sarcasm.

"Care to elaborate, Mr. Tesla?" The Master requested in a tone that proffered no negative answer, "It is, after all, your invention."

Tesla sighed darkly, but complied. "I now understand that it is an invention I wish I had never had the insight to construct. What you are being asked to step into, Mr. Cooper, Miss Brown, is a high frequency air core transformer. The electrical arcs you see coming from the structure of the device amount to a voltage of over 1,000,000 volts."

"_What_?!" Cooper roared, "And you want me to go _inside_ it?"

"However . . ." Tesla glared, annoyed at having been interrupted. "The device is producing levels of low-current, high frequency electricity. The bolts of lightning you see before you are no more dangerous than the bursts of resonant charge found between a pair of woolen socks."

"It's static electricity." Peri finished wearily, "It's harmless."

"For now." The Master added.

Cooper shrugged, the technical aspects wasted on him as soon as his safety was out of the question. He took Peri's shoulders in his massive hands, and directed her towards the sphere. As they were ensconced within the electrical field, arcs of purple lightning licked at their faces and clothes. Despite the extravagant display of noise and color, there was no pain. Tesla's coil was no more harmful than going over a charged bolt on a playground slide. The sensation tickled like lint in the dryer, and soon Peri's hair was shooting straight into the air, trying to free itself from her scalp.

Nikola Tesla, however, seemed acutely concerned despite the lack of harm being done by his machine. "Master, you mustn't. Let Peri go, allow me to take her place."

"Tesla, shut up!" Peri raged, "I didn't give up my freedom to save your life just to have you throw it away again!"

"I am attempting to save you from a considerable amount of discomfort!"

"At any rate," the Master interjected before a full-blown argument could break out, "Miss Brown possesses certain characteristics that render you useless, Tesla. You were wondering what her role in my plans was: this is it."

Peri stared at him. "What are you talking about?"

"During Tesla's first experimentation with his alternating current transformer, he was given a minute glance into the entirety of the Time Vortex. Unfortunately, his inherent lack of artron energy in his physiology made prolonged contact impossible, and just hair-breadths away from lethal. This . . . proto-time machine needs an operator in order to work, and a human operator at that, in order to market to humans. But . . . this human in question needs a substantial store of artron energy in their somatic system in order to survive prolonged exposure to the Vortex and create a temporal bridgehead to make further incursion possible by others in possession of the machine, even those wihout a physical manifestation of artron energy."

"But I'm human!" Peri protested in anguish, "I've got no more of this artron stuff than Tesla does!"

The Master's eyes flickered. "_Au contraire_, Miss Brown. Your blood is simply pulsing with artron energy. You are _inundated_ with it. I can _taste_ it, coming off you in waves."

Peri's heart, or whatever was left of it, plummeted to her feet. She was so shocked by her own realization that she didn't even notice Cooper leaving her alone within the sphere, locking the hatchway behind her. She didn't notice the rotating magnetic field emit a thrum of power as it sensed her so close to its open circuits.

"The TARDIS." She gasped.

The Master granted her a small bow of acknowledgement. "Precisely. I needed a human who had been exposed to the Vortex, who had traveled in time. Who better than one of the Doctor's beloved human pets?"

"The dossier . . . Cooper's manhunts . . . you needed one of the Doctor's companions!"

"And here you are, infamous American compatriot of the Fifth and Sixth Doctors." The Master had slipped like a shadow to the far side of the room. His hand caressed a sleek, unmarked black lever on one of the larger, more advanced control panels. "And we are ready to begin. We are ready to start the cataclysm. Please hold the joysticks on the box in front of you, Miss Brown."

She didn't move. "This is bigger than me. I can't just give up now! I can't let you do what you're planning."

"You will, or Mr. Cooper here will reupholster the far wall with the contents of Mr. Tesla's skull. Ask yourself: will you be responsible for creating another martyr in your name?"

Cooper's Peacemaker was out and aimed squarely at Tesla's head before the Master had even finished his threat.

"Do not do it." Tesla begged quietly. _The pain will come, the blinding magnesium light, soon she will be screaming in agony . . ._

"Okay okay okay, put that damn thing away." Peri swallowed, her hands sweaty. She gestured to the gearbox in front of her. "These two handle things right here?"

"The very same. Grasp them tightly. The electromagnetic field will then keep you in contact and prevent you from removing them."

Peri did as she was told. Her hands, as the Master had said, held fast to the two ice-cold contact points. Her fingers were soon cramped and sore from the constant flow of static.

"_Ave atque vale_, Perpugilliam Brown!" The Master announced mockingly, as always with a touch of grandeur. And then he pulled the lever.

"No!" Tesla cried despairingly.

3.5 million volts of electricity flowed through the contact points and made the complete electromagnetic circuit through Peri's body. The entire metallic sphere glowed like white fire. As the rotating magnetic field gained power, the Time Vortex's phantasmagoria of color could be seen licking at the edges of the blinding halo of light.

The sound of Eternity was soon drowned out by Peri's screams.


	19. Chapter 18: Circles Of Hell

_"The gift of mental power comes from God, Divine Being, and if we concentrate our minds on that truth, we become in tune with this great power."_

___— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

Lady Lindy fell through a pocket of rising air, and the resulting upward jolt of the plane almost caused the Doctor to bite right through his tongue. He had returned to his seat at Amelia Earhart's fervent request, but the lashings of his belt and harness did little to improve his illusion of safety. His hands were clenched around the armrests; he braced himself in a futile effort to lesson the sensation of falling. Though the aircraft's momentum and aerodynamic properties kept them from plunging out of the air in a dead flop like a ton of bricks, their gliding trajectory towards the hot white light on the horizon, the burning brightness at Wardenclyffe, was unstable. Their coasting back to earth was unhindered by wind shear, allowing them to gain speed rather than lose it. There was no drag on the vehicle. The plane was coming in fast: too fast for the ever-decreasing distance to the Shoreham peninsula.

Though P.I. Fogg had never been in a plane before, and wouldn't know the difference between cockpit and "cock-a-doodle-doo", even he could tell something was amiss with Lady Lindy's rapid descent.

"We're going too fast! We're going to crash." He moaned, daring to gaze out of the window from between the cracks of his fingers.

Amelia Earhart let out a honk that would have been a laugh under different circumstances. "Cripes, you've just noticed that, have you?"

"He is right, though," Fred Noonan relayed stoically, his voice even despite the fact that his hands were as white and tight as the Doctor's own, "we are coming in at too great a velocity to make a controlled landing. Though the sea has significantly calmed since coming within range of that "light", at this speed, we will break apart on the water if we attempt an amphibious landing."

The Doctor peeled his hands from the armrests and bellowed towards the cockpit, "Lower the aircraft's main landing gear!"

Noonan was quick to point out, "We've lost all hydraulic power."

"Then use a gravity drop! The hatches are spring-loaded; just pop the panels open to release the wheels and increase the drag coefficient of the plane! That should slow us down somewhat . . ."

Amelia shot him a look of despair from over her shoulder. "We have to put her down using the pontoons or nothing at all, Cat. We can't make a safe ground landing with our kit."

The Doctor had forgotten about their amphibious landing gears. _That_ specific technical alteration was not mentioned in the history books, though it was not unheard of for Lockheed Electras to be outfitted with them under special, opportune conditions. Unfortunately, their current condition was anything but opportune. Lady Lindy's amphibious capabilities could prove to be a fatal alteration to the structure of the plane.

"Do you have ground-ready landing gears _anywhere_ on the body of the aircraft?" The Doctor asked hurriedly, racking his brain for a plan.

Fred shook his head gravely. "No: the originals were bolted underneath the two radial engines, but were removed in light of our intended water landing at Howland Island. They were due to be reattached once _Itasca_ had fixed our position and sent a maintenance team."

"That hardly does us any good right now, does it?"

"I don't hear you suggesting anything useful, Doctor!"

"Would you two stop yammering!" Amelia snapped, her patience wearing thin, "Some of us are trying to land an engine-less aircraft here!"

The Doctor pursed his lips. He pinched the bridge of his nose in concentration as he willed some idea to come to light. He'd been in more hopeless situations than this . . . roasting in supernovas, at the mercy of invasions, caught in the bloodshed of genocides. Surely he could come up with a plan to prevent a simple plane crash!

_Think, you old fool! _He berated himself, _You're over 900 years old! Surely you've heard of some similar airborne crisis at one point or another! A case where both engines on a small plane had died . . . How did the crew handle it before?_

_The Gimli Glider! Of course!_

Fogg saw the Doctor's eyes widen, a huge grin bloom across his ample features. He ventured a hesitant, "Doctor? I don't know whether to be hopeful or terrified whenever you make that face . . ."

"I think I have a plan." The Time Lord announced proudly.

"Don't keep it to yourself!" Amelia pressed.

He warned her, "But you're not going to like it."

"I don't entirely fancy smearing my plane all over Long Island, either! Given the lesser of two evils and all that jazz . . ."

"If there's even a slim chance, I say we take it. I don't want to die." Pleaded Fogg.

"Very well." The Doctor's face turned deadly serious again. He unbuckled his seat belt, to Fogg's evident horror, and crawled up towards the cockpit again. The two-man crew was too busy to even notice.

From the front window, the plane's descent was even more dramatic. The lighted waves emanating from the glowing orb of energy were growing in size and becoming more frequent, indicating their rapid approach to Wardenclyffe.

"What the hell are you doing out of your seat, man?" Noonan, nostrils flaring, demanded as the Doctor crouched between him and Earhart.

"You need my help!" The Doctor barked. Turning his back to Noonan, he focused his full attention on Amelia. "We can lower the speed of the plane enough to attempt a ground landing using the pontoons."

She, for the first time since the Doctor had known her, seemed uncertain of his assuredness. "How, Cat?"

"By aiming for a particularly large snow drift. The waves of whatever it is over Wardenclyffe have cleared the fog at any rate, so we'll be able to see. We will land her by performing a sideslip."

"A what now?"

"Do you trust me?" The Doctor asked earnestly, ignoring her question, but holding her attention with large blue eyes. Under his probing gaze, Amelia Earhart licked her lips nervously, but she found herself nodding.

"Completely. God help me . . ."

"Then cross the controls," he ordered, "force the plane into a slanted free fall. We can increase drag on the fuselage by cross-controlling the rudder, tail elevators, and ailerons on the wing tips. We angle the body of the plane in one direction, and then use your controls and the rudder to turn the plane in the opposite direction. The angled formation should take us on the same heading but significantly reduce our descent velocity."

"Cat, we'd be falling sideways into the incoming air!"

"Exactly! Sideslip: by changing the angle of free fall, you will have some manner of control over our landing."

Amelia was about to open her mouth to protest, to admit that she didn't understand the intricacies of the complicated maneuver, but then Lady Lindy hit another air pocket. The plane rattled precariously, shaking her passngers to the core. They were so close to the ground now that Fogg could make out little buildings and towns dotting the Long Island seaboard.

Amelia clamped her doubts and began to give orders, not allowing herself to think of the dire alternatives. "Mr. Noonan, make the angle of the velocity vector to Lady Lindy's longitudinal axis about 17 degrees."

Noonan was highly skeptical of the Doctor's plan, but his stalwart obedience of his pilot overpowered his inherent distrust of the Time Lord. He engaged manual control of the rudder and ailerons and tipped them towards the left as Amelia steered the plane a gentle right. Fogg let out a shrill of terror as the plane began to list and slice sidewise through the air, more boomerang than aircraft.

Amelia's hands were so tight on the control wheel her entire arm below the elbow had turned numb. She announced shakily, "It's working: we've dropped our velocity to 100 kilometers an hour . . . 95 . . . 85 . . ."

"We're crabbing the plane!" Noonan warned, his head smooshed against the window. When he looked down, all he could see was dry land; Amelia could just see sky.

She tried to reassure her navigator, "I'll straighten the old doll out before we lan—how are we going to land, Doctor?"

"I told you: glide the pontoons over a flat piece of meadow or pack ice." He sighed, "We are already over land, and we can't risk making a dash for open water with our decreasing speed. We wouldn't make it."

"Wardenclyffe is a 200 acre property," Fogg noted, "just grass. If that storm we flew through dropped anything significant, there should be a good half meter or so of snow and ice on the ground. We could land the plane like a sledge."

The Doctor gave a thumbs up. "Good thinking, Fogg! Amelia?"

"If that's all we've got to tango with, then I'll dance."

"If I had a better idea, I'd be sure to let you kno—_ah! Argh!_"

The Doctor cried out in pain, hands flying to his head. A feverish pulse of agony swept through his mind, agony not of the body, but of something deeper, something inherently temporal in origin. Light flashed in front of his eyes, searing the rods and cones and temporarily blinding him.

The burning ball of light over Wardenclyffe flared and expanded, boiling outward into the sky. It rumbled like thunder on the horizon. Each time a wave passed through Lady Lindy, the Doctor's head exploded in nauseating pain.

Fogg exclaimed, "Doctor, what's wrong?"

"Light." He murmured, "Blinding, mindless, uncomprehending light, leaking through the cracks in the veil. . . It's started. It has begun."

Fogg felt himself go cold. "The Boss . . . the Master . . . he's done it?"

The Doctor had tears in his eyes, the pain in his head was so great. "He is ripping a hole in the causal nexus, and the universe is screaming out in its agony and terror . . . wait. Something else. _Someone_ else is here, at the source of the scream . . ."

The Doctor nearly pulled his hair out in horror. His pupils were practically nonexistent and his eyes were wide, reflective marbles of blue when he cried, "It's Peri!"

Earhart gave a start. "Miss Brown! Are you sure?"

"Peri . . . oh, Peri," The Doctor whispered, paying Amelia no heed.

"What is he doing to you?"

* * *

_In a way, the sensation was pleasant, if and when "pleasant" became an apt description of being repeatedly struck by artificial lightning in a rotating magnetic field. _

_Though her body lay rigid in perpetual agony, her mind floated free of that body, free of space, and free of time too, drifting along in the infinite blackness as the raw material of her thoughts and dreams. There was no sense of self-awareness, no understanding of physical sensation. The blackness, the empty void, was deadening to her perceptions of reality. All she knew, all she was capable of knowing, was that she existed in a realm where the physical restraints of her world and her mind did not seem to apply. Various segments of memory, losing the Doctor in New York, Frobisher's death, Tesla's desolation, lingered like dimming starlight in the firmament of her conscious. The most disconcerting aspect of her "un-being", however, was that she had no reference with which to place her state. She could have been drifting as an ethereal sliver of conscience, through the interstitial medium, for three seconds, a millennia, or for all eternity. She simply did not know._

_Am I dead?_

_Depending on what I define as life, I could be dead._

_The opposite of understanding is misunderstanding._

_Since I understand the essence of my sense of self in life, but I can't comprehend what I have become, does this follow that I am, in fact, dead?_

_I must consider: does my life exist side by side with a belief in an afterlife, in a method of metaphysical continuity?_

_Is my morality determined by the inevitability of journeying to either Heaven or Hell?_

_But I am not a good person._

_I must be in Hell. _

_Alone._

_Alone in the silence, in the darkness, trapped in a state of "un-being". A black ghost hanging in the world of the damned. A shade even the Doctor couldn't hope to understand._

_The Doctor. Frobisher. Kathy. Nate. Mom. Dad . . ._

_They're all dead now. _

_Like me._

_But they all went to Heaven. They were clean souls, blessed with untainted hearts and inviolate bodies, with an innocence that was stripped away from me before my due time. They have the love, the happiness, I will never know. And I will never see them again. _

_This "state" is a lulling pleasantness, a false sense of security. The pain is knocking at the back of my skull, tethering me to the mortal world. I remember Tesla's machine. I remember Wardenclyffe. I have one foot planted in Hell and the other planted in the footholds of Planet Earth, in the land of the living._

_But it is not a true existence._

_How can I be both dead, and alive?_

_I need to let one world go. Choose a fate. Choose a reality._

_There is nothing for me in life anymore. Only pain. Only more death, but never my own. _

_Mine is a facsimile of a life, broken like a smashed mirror. There are shards of me cracking across time, twisting my reflection into abhorrent phantasms that make the eyes tear in horror. Showing me my true self through the veil of my own misplaced sense of self-righteousness. Through my violations, my torment, my betrayals, and other's suffering. I am shown the black truth at the center of blacker lies._

_Yes._

_I think it is time to go, Perpugilliam Brown. It is better that way. Better for everyone._

_Time to finally die, like you should have done so long ago: drowned in Lanzarote, poisoned on Androzani, tortured on Varos, and finally murdered by the Master. My death will resound throughout time, righting the wrongs, fixing that which needs to be fixed, setting the universe to rights. Saving the people I care about._

_Die quietly, Peri. I never really loved you, anyway._

_"Through me you enter into the city of woes_

_through me you enter into eternal pain,_

_through me you enter the population of loss._

_abandon all hope, you who enter here."_

* * *

The corner of the Doctor's right eye twitched. He had closed them tight as he peered into the nether-space within his mind, into the blank, dimensionless void leaking from the confines of the Time Vortex.

"She's in trouble." He murmured to himself. Under the sound of Lady Lindy's tumultuous landing, nobody heard him.

_What are you doing, Peri?_ The Doctor tried desperately to establish a mental link, using the artron energy reserves of his mind and body, reaching out to her across the expanse of time and space, _Why won't you let anyone in? Why won't you let ME in?_

_Oh no. _

_Oh Peri, no. Not this. This is never the way!_

Whether to thwart the Master's plan or to stop her own physical torment, of one thing, the Doctor was certain: Peri Brown was trying to kill herself.

The Doctor heard the muttering of a passage on the edge of his thoughts, or rather _her_ thoughts, the somber eulogy of one who had come to terms with death and welcomed the oncoming twilight. One who could achieve no more through the misery of her continued existence. One who did not want to live anymore, out of pure, unbridled shame.

_"Through me you enter into the city of woes_

_through me you enter into eternal pain,_

_through me you enter the population of loss._

_abandon all hope, you who enter here."_

It was Peri's voice, the deepest, darkest parts of her psyche, warning him away, urging him not to interfere. Using the verses of Dante, no less.

Throwing caution into the wind, the Doctor thrust his mental lance home, gritting his teeth and pushing hell for leather against Peri's link to the Time Vortex, ___Interfere!? Of course I should interfere! Always do what you're best at, that's what I always say!_

* * *

_ "Your white light is shining_

_Your soul a beacon in the dark_

_Never waning, never fading_

_A creature never lost to dying."_

_A spark of . . . something, emerged amid the nothingness. An abstract, piebald speckle of soaring blue that she would have, in another life, recognized as hope._

_But she can have no hope. She is Perpugilliam Brown and she has no hope._

_"The life lived, forsaken_

_Grief endured, smiles taken_

_No longer must sorrow reign_

_Oblivion will dull the pain."_

_"No release from agony_

_No escape amongst the dead_

_Come, rest your weary head_

_And please, come back to me."_

_"The music is hollow_

_The song is empty_

_The words are cold._

___The life: wretched, old."_

* * *

"_Argh_, why is she fighting me like this?!" The Doctor cried aloud in frustration, startling Fogg out of his terrified stupor, "Does the stupid girl want to die?!"

"Are you actually talking to someone?" Fogg burbled incredulously, fear of the impending plane crash seizing his voice. Even so, he could not squelch his insatiable curiosity. "How?"

"Telepathic conference. I am attempting to contact Peri much in the same way Nikola Tesla first contacted her aboard the TARDIS. We are weave speaking: interlacing our thoughts and desires by means of abstract prose for which the closest human equivalent, grossly, is poetry."

"Doctor, stop séancing with that wretched girl!" Fred Noonan, his patience at its end and his nerves fried, ordered the Doctor promptly, "Get yourself buckled in tight and brace for landing!"

"No!" He protested, "Just give me a little more time! I have to save her!"

"And I have to help Amelia save us! Ask yourself what the more immediate problem is here!"

"I _will not _allow her to destroy herself out of some misplaced sense of valor! I am not going to lose her!"

"Too late for that, Cat!" Amelia shrieked, "Brace for impact!"

The Lockheed Electra touched down on the ground with a smack strong enough to knock teeth free of gums. The plane's pontoons ripped free of their supports almost immediately and the craft was soon engulfed by a halo of orange sparks. The Doctor, not in his seat upon landing, felt himself go airborne amidst the screams of his fellow passengers and the sickening wrench of mutilated machinery. He flew towards a flaring light, a white sun burning against his blue eyes until he was blinded by its majesty and beauty. And then he delved into the welcoming embraces of the dimensionless prism, and he knew no more.


	20. Chapter 19: Dagon

_"What the result of these investigations will be the future will tell; but whatever they may be, and to whatever this principle may lead, I shall be sufficiently recompensed if later it will be admitted that I have contributed a share, however small, to the advancement of science."_

_— Nikola Tesla, The Electrical Engineer, June 22, 1888 —_

* * *

The ground rumbled with the concussive power of a warhead. The screech of metal against metal, of machinery being wrenched mercilessly out of shape, made both Martin Cooper and Nikola Tesla grind their teeth together in discomfort. The stone walls of Wardenclyffe trembled until small streams of dust trickled down from the transmission tower ceiling, high above their heads in the gloom. The night sky was set alight by firework bursts of flame, which in turn cast an angry orange glare over the main Wardenclyffe Laboratory.

The cage of the Time Jump device, the one containing Peri Brown, groaned in protest. The ribbons of lightning jumping off the rotating electrical field flickered like fading firelight. Not wanting to jeopardize the machine's integrity under the explosive assault resounding from outside, the Master cranked the activation lever into reverse. As the current abated, Peri's limp hands fell away from the open circuits. With no power to keep her upright, she sank to the floor in a swoon, and lay twitching upon the slick, cold floor, her muscles quivering from excess electrical stimuli to her nervous system.

"What the hell was that?!" Cooper roared from his place by the machine, casting a demented but wary stare out the lone window of the laboratory and into the fiery night.

"Why don't you use that laudable initiative of yours and _find out_?" Seethed the Master.

The Time Lord's fury coiled off him in waves, like a bad smell. He was enraged by the fact that something could go wrong so close to the moment of his inevitable victory. Though Peri had been under the effect of the Time Jump for the better part of five minutes, it was unclear whether or not the artron energy link, the bridgehead, had been established in the early stages of the experiment, successfully linking Earth to the Time Vortex. The uncertainty, and now the delay, made the Master visibly tremble with anger. Even Cooper, shaken though he was by the explosions coming from just outside the compound, and concerned about his own personal safety, didn't think it wise to argue with his employer. Unholstering his gun, leaving Peri unconscious within the belly of Tesla's device, Cooper leapt up the stairs to the exit and melted away into the night.

"Miss Brown! Peri!" Nikola Tesla forced himself forward, braving the afterglow of electrical energy haloing his damnable machine. He placed his venous hands on the outside of her spherical cage and gazed through the bars in despair, his knuckles white on the rungs. "Please answer me!"

The Master clamped a hand onto the inventor's neck and savagely shoved him away from the device. "You will not touch her."

"She needs urgent medical attention."

"That's as may be, she is in no danger."

"No danger, you claim! By rights she should not have survived exposure to that high a voltage for that long a time. She should be burnt beyond recognition!" Tesla tried to reason, his neck and back growing sore under the Master's steely fingers. Though he bested the Master in size, Tesla could not overcome his unfeasible strength. "She needs the assistance of a doctor."

"And she shall receive it." The Master hissed, a peculiar glint refracting off his pale eyes.

Tesla, not a man easily perturbed, felt his knees wobble under the Master's evil gaze, the gaze that had reduced men to mere, mindless marionettes. "What are you going to do to her?"

"Me? Nothing. Nothing at all." The Master smiled, but Tesla detected not an iota of comfort or warmth in his leering. It was the sinister smile an assassin wears as he clutches a bloody knife behind his back. "We are going to have a special visitor."

"Who?"

"Oh, someone you've been anxious to meet for quite some time, Mr. Tesla," the Master drawled, "and when he shows his face, we'll be ready for him."

"A doctor's help . . . _the _Doctor's help," Tesla murmured, painful realization sinking in, "but you told Miss Brown he had died in New York."

The Master's expression twisted into one of dark disgust. "Not as the case may be. Like a plague of locusts, he is notoriously difficult to rid oneself of. But, rest assured, Mr. Tesla: if he is alive, Miss Brown will draw him to us like a moth to a candle flame. Like a whimpering dog to the leather belt of its master. Like a lamb to the slaughter."

* * *

The air was hot, oppressive, and sat upon his chest like a barbell, crushing it until his ribs and breastbone were ground into fine white powder. He was breathing in fire. He screamed silently as the flames licked his trachea and seared the insides of his throat and nose. He was suffocating in the inferno, blinded by the tendrils of fire which scorched his eyes into opaque, featureless white orbs, like fly eggs. He could feel the hot wind flaying the skin from his bones and kneading his muscles into knotted webs of fleshy wrinkles. He was being consumed, burned away into black smoke to be evanesced into the deep fabric of stars and lost forever, forgotten even to those with memory enough to care.

He thought he heard a voice calling to him, but more likely than not it was just the whisper of the flame as it ate away at his ears and riddled its way into his brain. He chose to ignore its insane ravings, its glib twitterings. The harbingers of death make for the most terrible conversationalists.

"Can you move?"

_Of course I can't damn well move, you idiot. I'm being burnt alive, remember?_

Through the numb agony of the flame, a tentacle of coolness brushed his charred face. Fingers of ice caressed popping, spitting flesh.

"You're alright. You're okay."

_No, I'm not! Stop being so blindingly obtuse!_

"I'm going to ease you up now, Doctor. Got that?"

_Doctor? I don't need a Doctor, I need a mortician! I need an undertaker!_

"Here we go . . . Hiyup!"

He felt his broken, scalded body being wrenched out of the arms of the fire, and suddenly he found that he was not broken at all. Nor was he scalded beyond all recognition. The air was, indeed, thick and smoky, but from flames consuming the twisted metal carcass of some sort of machine, not from flames consuming his poor self. His skin was smooth, untouched by crisping flame, but flushed and angry from the heat of the bonfire raging around him. It took his sweat and smoke-blinded eyes a few moments to adjust, but soon the Doctor found that he was sitting up amidst the wreckage of Lady Lindy, staring into the bloodshot, scared eyes of Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg.

"Are you okay?" Fogg's throat was cracked, broken like the body of their doomed plane. His voice was so whispery and sparse that it was little wonder it had taken him so long to talk the Doctor out of his semiconscious stupor.

The Doctor considered his companion with bleary eyes. Fogg had not been spared from the inferno. His carroty hair and weatherworn clothes were blackened and smoking around the edges. The corner of his left eye had split and thick rivulets of blood snaked down his sallow cheek until they dribbled onto his sooty collar. He held his left arm to his chest, trying and failing to hide his purple, swollen digits from the Doctor's searching gaze.

"It seems you didn't escape entirely unscathed, Mr. Fogg." The Doctor said grimly. He was surprised by how ravaged his own voice sounded.

"Could have been a lot worse."

Seeing the utter devastation around him, the Doctor inclined his head in agreement. He threw off his black dinner jacket and began to tear strips of the fabric into long bandages. He took Fogg's limp arm in strong hands and prepared to pop the limb back into its shoulder socket.

"Let's splint that arm of yours." He murmured.

"Let's get clear of this mess, first." Fogg interrupted the Doctor's brutal ministrations, "I thought I heard Miss Earhart and Mr. Noonan somewhere over that knoll."

"They're alive?"

"I think so. I have never heard a lady swear quite so much . . ."

The Doctor's relief was evident. "Can you walk?"

"I can even run."

"Good man."

Careful to avoid putting pressure on the detective's floppy left arm, the Doctor hoisted Fogg to unsteady feet. The Time Lord's ankle twinged in pain whenever he rested his generous weight on it.

"Seems as though I did not escape entirely unscathed, either." The Doctor grumbled irritably. Every step sent a lance of pain shooting up his calf muscle.

He was soon reduced to hobbling over the twisted shards of metal and burning puddles of fuel, towards the relative safety of the snow-covered knolls beyond. The air was filled with the sound of escaping helium, their view obscured by steam. The ignited fuel spat and hissed on the snow-covered ground and in the frigid wind. Fire and ice burned together in the night.

"Amelia! _Amelia_!" The Doctor croaked at the top of his lungs, willing his arid, smoke-ravaged throat to form the words, "Fred! Where are you!?"

"Doctor, stop being so damn loud!" Fogg hissed, "We're too close to Wardenclyffe to risk drawing attention to ourselves!"

The Doctor arched a cynical eyebrow as he staggered across the burning heather. "As if we haven't drawn enough attention to ourselves already by crashing a Lockheed Model 10 Electra aircraft on their doorstep."

Fogg sniffed contemptuously, "You know what I mean."

"You want us to lay low? Trick the Master into thinking we died in the crash?"

"Preferably. If that isn't too much to ask your Highness . . ."

The Doctor waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, not at all. Not at all. I feel half-dead already, anyway."

"Likewise, Cat."

Amelia Earhart shuffled into view from behind the banks of snow, her shoulders hunched forward, shivering despite the heat blowing off the hide of the wreckage. She hugged the remnants of her flight jacket around her, trying to block out the bitterly cold winter wind blowing off the ocean. Her short hair was matted with dirt and dried blood, her grey eyes wide like those of a deer in headlights. Like the Doctor, she had a heavy limp.

"Is Fred . . ?" The Doctor hesitated to ask.

Earhart bobbed her head. "He's fine. Dry-gulched, out cold, but fine."

Fogg grinned, but Amelia didn't grin back. The Doctor clapped a hand on her shoulder, but Amelia didn't raise her head to meet his eyes. She stared gravely at the frosty ground, her expression that of marble statue.

"Amelia, I am so, so sorry." The Doctor put an arm around her shaking shoulders and pulled her close. He knew she wasn't shivering from the cold. "Lady Lindy saved our lives. She saved mine twice! She was magnificent."

"The very best." Amelia sniffed, but there were no tears. She shrugged off the Doctor's embrace. "Lady Lindy wasn't just a plane, Cat. She was _my_ plane. She took me halfway around the world and halfway back to yesterday, and look how it ended. Look at how my great adventure ended, eh? Not with a whisper, but with a bang. A right big bang. I think I was always destined to sail into the sunset, end my days in the sky. Just take the air and never come back. Now . . . I feel like a bit of me has been blipped-off before its time. I'm a bird with her wings clipped."

The Doctor flinched as if hit. The guilt sat in his stomach like a bowling ball. "Amelia, I—"

"Close your head, Doctor." Amelia snapped with a voice like chipped ice, "I don't need your mollycoddling. You've done enough already."

She stalked away, burying her hands in her armpits and bowing her head against the wind. The detective and the Time Lord were left together in awkward silence, shuffling their feet in the snow.

Fogg grunted, "Women, huh?"

The Doctor glared at him. "What would you know about it, hmm?"

Fogg opened his mouth to let fly a biting comeback . . . but no words came.

"I'm going after Peri." The Doctor announced loudly before another long silence could ensue.

"Not on that ankle, you're not."

"Are you coming?"

"I said, not on that ankle you're no—"

"_Are you coming_?"

The Doctor's expression hardened and his shoulders straightened. He assumed a defiant stance, as if a part of him feared someone would try to stop him. Fogg's colorless eyes revealed nothing of his innermost thoughts. His face was stony, inscrutable when he asked, "Do you love her?"

The question caught the Doctor off guard. He sputtered, more in self-defense than rebuttal, "_What_? Of all the fool questions to ask at a time like this . . ."

"Do you?" Fogg was completely earnest, as if the Doctor's answer mattered to him more than anything else in the world.

The Doctor scrunched his face in consternation. His voice was soft and pondering, not like his usual bombastic swagger, when he queried, "Why is it so important to you?"

"It will determine whether or not I follow you into Goliath's cave." Fogg said it in a way that proffered no argument.

The Doctor bit his tongue. His busted ankle began to ache, and he nervously shifted his weight. "These human emotions . . . they're hard for me to understand. Peri is hard for me to understand."

"That's not an answer."

"Then yes . . . Maybe . . . I don't know! It's complicated, chaotic." Never one to suffer from false modesty, the Doctor added, "Perhaps my intellect is too advanced to answer in terms _you_ could understand."

Fogg wiped a trail of blood out of his eye with the back of his hand. Without missing a beat, he countered, "Or perhaps your intellect is too advanced to really know _how_ to answer. False pretenses, remember? If you don't have an answer, then say so."

"Fine, then," the Doctor huffed, growing impatient, "when I look at Peri, I see someone who is more than the sum of her parts. I see a woman moulded by circumstances and at the mercy of elements far beyond her control. When I look at her, I see waste. I see a life I sacrificed in order to save her own and the hate I received in recompense. I see her coldness, her hesitation, and her longing for a me long gone. But . . . when I look at Peri Brown, I see hope. I see proof that one can overcome their inner pain and transform it into pristine beauty. I see a bright future, a dawn breaking over a dark night. I see a young woman who embodies everything I adore about the human race, the urge to achieve more than what life has granted them. I see a young woman through whom I wish to see myself. If that means less to you than whatever you derive from the monosyllabic word "love", then you can wait out here with Miss Earhart."

There was silence, broken only by the crackling of the flames around the skeleton of Lady Lindy. Then Private Investigator Fogg favored the Doctor with one of his rarest endowments . . .

He smiled, widely and brightly.

"Coming from an alien, that's about the most human thing I've ever heard." The man squeezed the Doctor's arm, grinning like a child at Christmas. The Doctor wondered if he'd ever smiled like that before in his life. "And sometimes, being human is the most important thing in the entire world. Sometimes, like now, it's all a fella needs to go charging headfirst into insurmountable danger against daring odds."

"After you, Mr. Fogg." The Doctor quipped, gesturing towards Wardenclyffe.

A harsh cackle stopped the Doctor's humor dead in his throat. Their repartee lay unspoken on chapped lips, and both men felt the blood drain from their faces.

"Such sanctimony. Such goddamn sentiment. Such a waste of breath."

The Doctor and Fogg turned. A tall, grey-skinned man stood less than 200 yards away, silhouetted by red tendrils of fire, holding and aiming what looked suspiciously like a firearm. The Doctor could see nothing else of the man save for a pair of flickering red eyes, colorless but for catching the light of the wreckage flames, and a white, slitted smile, like a cold crescent moon, shining in the shadows.

Fogg's expression was one of abject horror. "Doctor, run!"

"I am NOT leaving you!" The Time lord rasped, but Fogg was already running _towards_ the gunman, drawing attention away from the Doctor.

"Go save your friend," he called over his shoulder, his voice fading into the wind, "you have to tell her what you told me. GO!"

The Doctor looked with anguish at the detective's retreating figure, up until he disappeared behind the curtain of flame and into the darkness.

"Fogg . . ."

He forced his misty eyes away, and began to run towards the looming mass of Wardenclyffe Tower. His ankle screamed in protest, his leg threatened to buckle, but the Doctor paid his pain no heed. Fogg had given him a chance to save Peri; he intended not to waste it.

Fogg finally stopped running, and drew his Colt pistol with his good arm. Its cool, metallic surface felt good against the palm of his sweaty hand.

"I would have expected no less." Martin Cooper leered at the much smaller, slighter man. Unbelievably, he had holstered his weapon. "Are you intending to kill me with that sorry excuse of a peashooter?"

Fogg's colorless eyes narrowed. "I would prefer not to, but I certainly will, if I have to. Your face looks nice, by the way. Had some work done?"

Cooper laughed harshly, spitting his words through swollen lips, "You coward! Private Investigator Hamm Fogg, scourge of the New York underbelly save for the fact that he's afraid to pull the fugging trigger!"

"Not afraid." He clicked off the safety catch. "Just in possession of a greater conscience than you were ever blessed with. What is your name now?"

Cooper didn't seem fazed by the apparent change of subject. "My name . . . wouldn't you like to know."

"I want to know what poor bastard you've gone and butchered this time!"

Cooper licked his lips hungrily. "You have a glint of steel in your voice, Hamm. Since when did the cowardly become the foolish?"

Fogg whispered in cold fury, "Since a man named Victoire Fogg plastered my face all over the front step of my home. Since I discovered the true measure of evil permeating that godforsaken hole of a city. Since you began to steal people's names, their very identities, as quickly as you stole the breath from their lungs!"

"So you want to know my name, Hamm Fogg?" Cooper jeered, "You want to know the new name of the Anagram Assassin?"

"Yes!" He roared. "Tell me, goddammit!"

"Martin Cooper! Martin fugging Cooper!"

Fogg's brain worked at a million miles an hour, extracting the lie from the letters. He knew what he would find nestled at the heart of the anagram, he had known for months, but the fathomless anger still exploded in his chest like an atom bomb.

"Martin Cooper . . . an anagram for Monica Porter." Fogg drew his pistol up to eye level. His Adam's apple hitched in his throat when he whispered, "You murdered my mother, you bastard."

"_Our_ mother, Hamm," Cooper reminded him cruelly, "the stupid bitch got in deep with the wrong sort. The sharks tore that harlot limb from limb."

"I'm going to kill you for that, Dagon." Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg aimed his weapon between his older brother's nauseatingly empty eyes. "I am going to kill you like our father Victoire killed me in a small Canarsie hut twenty years ago."

Martin Cooper . . . Dagon Fogg, smiled like a skeleton. "Go ahead, Hamm. Do it. It's the only way you'll draw another breath, because if you don't, I'm going to let you join dear Mama in the deepest circle of Hell, the circle reserved for whores and cowards."

Fogg's finger twitched, but he didn't pull the trigger. He couldn't. Pull the trigger and the wall he had built between himself and his past, between him and his murdering, psychotic brother, would come crumbling down.

"DO IT!" Shrieked the assassin, pounding his chest like an ape, pearls of spittle flying from his bloodless lips. He drew his weapon. "Or do I have to persuade you?!"

And then, erupting in the silence, the night was split apart by the sound of a gunshot.


	21. Chapter 20: Where The Demons Hide

_"The mind is sharper and keener in seclusion and uninterrupted solitude. No big laboratory is needed in which to think. Originality thrives in seclusion free of outside influences beating upon us to cripple the creative mind. Be alone, that is the secret of invention; be alone, that is when ideas are born."_

_— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

Wardenclyffe Tower was an unwelcoming, dangerous place that night. The compound differed from the Doctor's own memories of the place, memories of a sunny haven where science alone could pave the way to America's dreams of a brave new world. The tower stood tall, a beacon out to sea, but whereas before it had been a beacon of progress, it was now a beacon of chaos.

Christmas Eve was growing old; an early night had fallen over the Shoreham peninsula, a night caused by time's acceleration around the epicenter of the temporal distortion. Space, and therefore time, had been warped out of shape so much that causality no longer obeyed linear continuity. The eerie midnight sky, and with it the dappled light of cold winter stars, did little to relieve the sense of foreboding hanging over Wardenclyffe's mock-obsidian parapets. The building's shadowy, featureless exterior made it look as old, decrepit, and sad as any tenement building in New York City.

There was a secret harbored inside the massive stone structure, and it was a secret Wardenclyffe would not divulge without a fight.

_You're simply oozing good cheer on this Christmas Eve night, Doctor._

On that thought, the Doctor shrugged noncommittally, grasped the brass doorknob, and let himself in through the front entrance of Wardenclyffe.

"So far as reception committees go, this one is sorely disappointing." He grumbled aloud as he stepped over the threshold, his words frosting in the still air.

Wardenclyffe was empty. No guards leapt out of the shadows to bar his way, no well-aimed bullets burrowed into his exposed back. His only company was the ocean wind and the snuffling scuttle of vermin sniffing in the shadows. He felt Fogg's absence like a punch in the gut, like a burden of guilt bearing down upon his shoulders. Even Peri, whose wavering thoughts had ghosted the fringes of his mind since the plane crash, had gone quiet. The Doctor hoped her silence was a positive development. He couldn't bear to think of the alternative. He couldn't bear to lose another friend. He had so much left to say . . .

He met no resistance as he trod by tiptoe through the manky, blustery foyer. He was on high alert, every sense poised, every muscle taught and ready to kick into gear. But no gun jabbed against his spine, no knife pricked his neck. Even when he located the entrance to the main laboratory, set so deep into the wall that it became more a black, dimensionless portal than a simple door, nothing stopped him from walking under the dripping archway. And nobody tried to attack him as the Doctor placed two hands on the damp wood, and pushed. The creak of the hinges could have come off the sound board of an old horror movie.

The Doctor whistled through a small gap in his teeth, his hands on his hips. "Now _that_ is what I call a laboratory!"

The vast zoo of electronics had been powered down and the equipment lay dark and quiet, unobtrusive, but the plethora of gears and gadgets still managed to kindle a spark of wonder in the Doctor's hearts. He could have contented himself for days, weeks even, exploring the various apparatus and tinkering with the experimental models. Wardenclyffe was a veritable sweet shop for a mind as scientifically oriented and tactile as the Doctor's.

Were the situation different, he wouldn't have hesitated to barrel headfirst into the scientific cornucopia of discovery. But, as the flickering shadows of fire, as the memory of Fogg's retreating back, kept reminding him, the situation was far from different.

His keen eyes scanned the chamber, and the huge Tesla Coil at the center of the room, sitting on display like the Hope Diamond, inevitably drew his focus. And, inevitably, so did the crumpled form of the young woman laying at its center.

"_Peri_!" The Doctor yelled in alarm. He raced around the caged walkway, his twisted ankle be damned, and down to the main laboratory floor. Pieces of equipment revolutionary to science were flung aside like last week's garbage as he dashed to the sphere's outer perimeter. He fiddled with the lock, trying in a futile effort to trip the mechanism. When his bang-up job with a spare barrette and paper clip didn't do the trick, he smashed it on the curved bars in frustration.

"I really need to make myself a new sonic screwdriver." He growled through clenched teeth, "Come on, you antiquated piece of junk!"

The crash on the cage echoed like thunder around the stone chamber, and the noise elicited some pained groaning from the young woman. Shaking her head, she tried to drag herself out of unconsciousness.

The Doctor pocketed his clips. He called quietly, "Peri, can you hear me? Wake up, Peri. Wake up."

Hazel eyes inched open, flickered, refocused. A quaky voice stuttered, "D–D–Doctor?"

"Yes! It's me! It's me, Peri!"

"But you can't be here. You're dead." She croaked, her mouth dry and her lips cracked, "That electricity thing must have fried my brain more than I thought . . ."

"You'll find I'm very much alive, my dear girl." He beamed. "And thank heavens, so are you! There is absolutely nothing wrong with your brain!"

Peri struggled to lift her head, which suddenly seemed to weigh a quarter of a ton. "B–but the Master, he said—"

The Doctor stiffened. His words were tipped with steel. "He lied, Peri. _Whatever_ he told you, he was wrong."

Peri wondered if the Doctor understood the gravity of that statement, if he knew just how much the Master _had_ said to her.

She blinked a few times. Slowly, the hazy film diminished from her eyes and she beheld the Doctor clearly for the first time. He had changed a lot over the course of just a day, be it the longest day of her entire life. He was like a figment out of a half-remembered dream. Though she could _see_ him, dressed rather dashingly in a starched white shirt, suspenders, and black bow tie, it took much persuading on her eyes' part to convince her brain that she wasn't hallucinating or psychotic.

"You're alive." Peri breathed incredulously, fearful that she'd wake up and break the illusion if she dared push her luck too far. "I just . . . can't believe it's you. You came back. _You are alive and you came back_!"

"Of course I'm alive, Peri." Said the Doctor gently. He could see his reflection in the pearly tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. "And furthermore, I'm as me as I'll ever be. I've come here to rescue you and Frobisher. Do you know where I can find the key to this blasted contraption . . . Peri? Peri, are you all right?"

She had bowed her head and allowed her hair to hang in her face like a moth-eaten curtain over an abandoned stage. The tears began to fall in silence. He could barely hear her when she whispered, "Doctor, I . . ."

He knew then that something had gone terribly wrong. "What's the matter? What happened?"

"He's dead."

The Doctor stopped fiddling with the lock. He fixed her with a blank stare. "I beg your pardon?"

"Frobisher is dead." Peri said miserably.

The Doctor's expression didn't change. He just continued to stare at her, waiting for the punch line of her macabre joke. The two friends didn't exchange another word for a very long time.

"Say something, Doctor." Peri willed him, "Please."

A deep, sad sigh vibrated in his throat. "What is there to say? Only words, empty and echoing with whispers. With old, dusty memories."

"I'm so terribly sorry." Peri hiccuped, trying and failing to choke down a sob. "I'm so sorry, Doctor, there was nothing I could do, the Master just . . ." She couldn't find the strength to dredge up the memory, to peel the scab off the wound.

"I'm sorry." She finished numbly.

"So am I." The Doctor felt a catch in his throat, but he swallowed it down and said fiercely, "We owe it to him to finish this. Now and forever. I am going to get you out, Peri."

Before the Doctor could do so much as pick up the lock again, Peri's eyes very nearly popped out of her sockets. She shrieked, "DOCTOR LOOK OUT!"

Her outcry took the Doctor by surprise. As he turned in the direction of Peri's outstretched finger, he felt a blunt object, a pipe or a metal bar, make contact with his back. It sent a ribbon of white hot pain racing down his spinal column, setting his entire body alight with fire. He collapsed to the ground in an agonized heap, the blow knocking him senseless.

Peri screamed. She was on her feet in seconds, bashing her fists in vain against the bars of her cage, helpless to intervene.

The Master, cloaked in the deepest black, elongated from the inky shadows swamping his laboratory. His face was impassive as he considered the winded form of the Doctor, but his pale eyes blazed with centuries worth of anger, hate, and disappointment. He sank a booted foot into the Doctor's side, just under his ribcage, eliciting a harsh gasp of pain from the fallen Time Lord.

"Predictable as ever, my dear Doctor." The Master said quietly, and promptly trod on his adversary's twisted ankle. The Doctor's whimpering was almost inhuman. "I knew you would come. I confess to a mild disappointment when I heard of your accident

in New York. A part of me regretted not being able to destroy you myself."

"Let Peri go." The Doctor pleaded, his tongue lolling.

The Master feigned deafness. "I apologize, Doctor . . . I didn't quite catch that," he tilted the Doctor's head towards the ceiling with a long metal pipe, "you need to speak up while you still have a voice to speak with."

The Doctor's face contorted in pain as he bellowed, "_Let the girl go_! You have me now, don't you? It's me you want, not her."

A snort. "Can you believe the arrogance of the man, Miss Brown? Tell him."

"It's _me_, Doctor." Peri said sadly, her voice shaky and her hands bone white on her cage, "_He_ forced Tesla to contact me on the TARDIS. _He_ was the one who changed Earth's timeline in 1910. It was all a trap to get me to Wardenclyffe. It was _me_ he needed all along, a human with artron energy."

"_Artron._" The Doctor parroted. His eyes widened in disbelief and revulsion. "You're building a time machine for the humans, aren't you? A time machine that utilizes Tesla's dabbling with rotating magnetic fields and uses Peri as the bridgehead!"

"Clever Doctor." The Master said sarcastically.

"Can you even begin to _imagine_ how obscenely destructive this mad scheme is to the Web of Time?!"

The Master gestured to himself. "Do I strike you as a man prone to caring a great deal about the Web of Time?"

"I'll stop you."

"Pathetic juvenile defiance, the snarls of an injured animal. They only thing required of you, Doctor, is to curl up like the self-abasing leech you are and die here at my feet." The Master circled like a hungry bird of prey. "At long last."

He planted a heel in the side of the Doctor's face, breaking the skin and leaving a fine trail of deep red. The Doctor groaned, grasping at his face as blood seeped between his fingers.

"Stop hurting him." Peri begged, "Please!"

"This is the man who very nearly choked you to death, Miss Brown," the Master informed her cooly, "why shouldn't I hurt him, in recompense for my suffering if not for your own?"

"I have never hurt you." The Doctor murmured in quiet protest, "I have only tried to stop you from destroying yourself."

"Haven't you, Doctor?!" The Master spat, his expression of cool detachment faltering, "How many times have you interfered with my plans? How many times have I extended to you the hand of cooperation, only to have you spit in it? How many times have I died, and been reborn again, in a never-ending cycle of torment and endless seasons of fear, because of you?"

The Doctor grew angry. "That isn't even your body! You stole it from someone I cared about very much!"

The Master smiled triumphantly. "Just as your earlier self tried to do to your Whifferdill companion, retake control of a being deemed less worthy than a Time Lord. He died a half man, unable to find the fine line between Whifferdill and Gallifreyan!"

"What are you talking about?" The Doctor asked while trying to heave his broken body off the floor. The Master allowed him to rise, savoring his pained lurching.

"Tell him, Miss Brown." He smirked, "Tell him about his former body's fall from grace."

Peri swallowed through a lump in her throat, but she did as the Master instructed. She told the Doctor her story, from the moment they got separated in New York until he took his first steps into Wardenclyffe. She relived getting kidnapped by Martin Cooper, meeting Tesla, Frobisher's murder, and her eventual first class pass to the destruction of Earth's timeline. Though the tale was riddled with horrifying moments of peril and jaw-dropping temporal paradoxes, the Doctor seemed especially concerned with his fifth self's attempt to establish a new regenerative cycle in Frobisher's body.

"Why would he . . . I . . . want to dismiss Frobisher's life so quickly?" The Doctor wondered aloud.

The Master answered, "Because you and I are not so different, Doctor. For millennia, long before the introduction of technology, dependency, and decadence, a substantial chunk of bipedal life knew of nothing else but the raw, driving need to stay alive. The Time Lords are no different. When the flesh is peeled away, layer by layer, when the veneer of civilization is shattered, we are not but prey animals yearning to survive. Fight or flight, kill or be killed. Many of the High Council would find this revelation of our condition horrifying. Structure and order, and the reigning of instinctual chaos, is what defines our civility, they argue. Why would one want to wish for the acknowledgement of the beast in our souls? Would that not, in theory, disregard the eons of evolution that have worked to bring us to the paramount of civilization? But the beast is in all of us, Doctor, even those as disgustingly self-righteous as you. We fight. We kill. We destroy our fellows in the hope of self-gain, material or otherwise. But we do it on the terms of civility. Not with spears and rocks and teeth and our bare hands, but with betrayal, deceit, and false pretense. It is more subtle and complex, but just as lethal as an arrow in the back. We are tools of survival, you and me, Doctor. Nothing more, nothing less. And you would kill to survive just as much as I would."

"Never!" The Doctor snarled, rising fully to his feet, ignoring the howl of his swollen ankle, and knuckling his hands. "I am nothing like you!"

"Would you kill me, Doctor, given the chance?" The Master challenged his age-old enemy.

"No."

"Even if I were to kill _her _if you didn't?"

He extended a long, pale hand towards Peri. She gulped in fright. There was not a sliver of doubt in her mind that the Master wasn't bluffing. She tore her eyes away from her prospective murderer and forced them to fall upon the Doctor. She shook her head fervently.

_No. You never would, Doctor. You can't!_

"You have already murdered one of my friends."

"The Whifferdill?"

"FROBISHER!" The Doctor roared, "His name was Frobisher!"

The Master savored the Doctor's anger. He fed off it like fire snatching oxygen from screaming lungs. He asked again, "Would you kill me to save Perpugilliam Brown? To avenge _Frobisher's_ needless death? Whose life means more to you: your arch enemy's, or your best friend's?"

The Master lay the metal pipe down upon the floor, within inches of the Doctor's reach. "This is a choice you were always destined to make, Doctor," he intoned, "you possess a hopelessly antiquated ethical code which can no longer stand up under close scrutiny. You act on predetermined morality rather than on the tangible consequences of your actions. Break that code now to save the life of your best, your only, friend. Or stand by the self-righteous path, stand by your rules as laid down by the man you strive to be, and forfeit her life. Will you allow me to draw blood for you to remain a good man, or will you draw blood yourself for you to finally become a good man?"

The Doctor licked his dry lips, darting his gaze from Peri to the corrugated metal pipe on the floor, it's brassy flanks already speckled with drops of his blood. Ever so slowly, his eyes almost squeezed shut, he extended his hand and took the weapon in a quivering fist. Peri let out an inadvertent gasp of alarm, and the Doctor looked to her with appeals for salvation, for forgiveness, in his eyes. The Doctor Peri knew was a bombastic narcissist, a raving egotist, and a stalwart refuser of help. He had shed that veneer of self import, and chosen instead to spare her a look of atonement, of humble vulnerability, that meant more to her than mere words ever could. Peri bit her lip, and gave the gravest of nods. An understanding passed between the two friends.

"Nothing ventured," the Doctor whispered, "nothing gained."

He lowered his shoulder, dropped the metal bar to the floor, and barreled into the Master at full speed, catching his body in a devastating rugby tackle. The Doctor's shoulder let out a sickening crack, but his weight sent the Master flying across the room and into a pile of bioelectronic computers. His neck snapped back and his head rolled. His expression was one of abject disbelief.

"The secret lies in making it up as you go along!" The Doctor said snidely.

He took the pipe, prayed to whatever sporting deities his Fifth Body had so heavily relied upon, and swung it cricket-style at the padlock of the Tesla coil. The casing caved in like wet paper mâché, and it tumbled out of the door hook and to the floor, rendered useless.

But Peri froze in the hatchway. "Look behind you!"

The Master had staggered to his feet, beside himself with fury, his blood boiling. He launched himself through the air like a panther and sank a fist into the Doctor's jaw. The punch echoed like a gunshot and the Doctor sank to his knees. The next blow sent him to the floor. His head knocked against the flagstones and his ears rang like a possessed church bell. The Doctor's eyes became glazed and unfocused, everything seemed to move in slow motion. The Master came up from behind the Doctor, out of his line of sight, hefted the heavy pipe, and prepared to bring it down over his skull.

Peri didn't give herself time to think; she leapt into the air and found herself hanging precariously onto the Master's back. She began to attack him in a feverish frenzy. Peri didn't know what she was hitting, just that she was bringing her arms back and her fists down against soft flesh again and again, and that her knuckles were growing steadily more bruised and bloodied. She didn't know who she heard screaming: herself or the Master.

The evil Time Lord let loose a bestial snarl, snatched a handful of Peri's brown air, and in an unbelievable show of strength, threw her shrieking self over his shoulder and across the room. Peri's head hit a console, and her vision swam with spectrum flashes of color and light. She slumped to the ground in a faint, too exhausted to hold off encroaching oblivion.

"I'll deal with you later, you insolent harpy." The Master growled, and returned his attention to the floored Doctor.

"Run . . ." Peri's mind was screaming, but she couldn't order her mouth to form the words before she passed out.

The Doctor was too dazed to fight back, too weak to defend himself. He faded in and out of consciousness, eyes flickering with television snow, as the Master took up the pipe again and clutched it in an alabaster fist, preparing to cave the Doctor's head in.

"Die, Doctor." The pipe came down.

A streak of black, a raven in a nosedive, rammed against the Master's exposed side. The blow threw him off-balance and sent the pipe clattering out of his hands. Six feet and six inches of muscle and pent-up anger clobbered the Master into one of the computer banks, slamming his head straight through a blinking monitor screen. Sparks, polarized glass, and cables exploded out of the impact, and soon the Master's head was lost behind braids of wire and stacks of vacuum tubes. The shadowy assailant stood and leered over his quarry in triumphant silence, tensing for another blow until he was sure consciousness had faded from the Master's eyes.

"Not this time, you son of a bitch." Nikola Tesla gasped through ragged intakes of breath.


	22. Chapter 21: Fogg And Darkness

_"The scientific man does not aim at an immediate result. He does not expect that his advanced ideas will be readily taken up. His work is like that of a planter - for the future. His duty is to lay foundation of those who are to come and point the way."_

_— Nikola Tesla, The Century Magazine, June, 1900 —_

* * *

Not usually one for flashbacks and nostalgia tours, Fogg found himself in the unusual position of casting his mind back twenty years ago, to another night like his terrible Christmas Eve. He remembered another bitterly cold twilight where the course of his entire life pivoted on the smallest of fulcrums. And with the memories of that winter night, he recalled a story from his childhood.

It was not a story derived from his sacrificed schooling, from the numbing pages of textbooks or spoken in the bored elocution of instructors, who taught more out of necessity than out of a desire to educate. Nor was the tale passed down by word of mouth from friend or family member. Hamm Fogg had had no friends growing up. Youngsters, even those of a Canarsie breed, were warned away from the children of drunks and harlots, and for good reason. Fogg's mother, the beautiful but naive Monica Porter, could not support her two children unless by means that undermined whatever dignity her husband Victoire, Fogg's father, had left her. Selling her body to buy bread could not have been more shameful than remaining married to the drunkest, most lascivious man on the undesirable side of the East River. At the end of every day, for as long as Fogg could remember, he had gone to bed hungry, ashamed, bruised, and devoid of a good story. His imagination, his hopes and his dreams, longed for an escape through a prose denied him by his illiteracy.

Fogg's first story, the story he remembered in such vivid detail, had come from one of the army of homeless men barracking in Canarsie's stewing underworld. Fogg's own Scheherazade, a hobo whom everyone knew as Shylock, frequented the garbage tips near the foggy river docks, digging in the silt and the mire for the carcasses of shrimp and crab or bits of bait even the fish daren't touch. Fogg remembered him always having flecks of red shell tangled in his snow-white hair and long beard, which he'd tie into a knot like a line of rope and fling over his shoulder to keep himself from tripping over it. Though Shylock had dressed in rags and lived amongst the rats, as most of the homeless did, he was unique in having been able to prevent the tell-tale streams of rheumy mucus from collecting in the corners of his eyes and obscuring his sight in a drunken or doped fog. He was always stone-cold sober, his aversion to drink almost sacrosanct.

Shylock had had brilliantly green eyes, so green they made the world they saw look black and white. Fogg had looked into those emerald orbs and imagined things he had only ever heard about from the gossip of gypsies; green pastures and fresh air and the intoxicating aroma of wildflowers. It made the young, hopeless Hamm Fogg nostalgic for a world he had never known.

It was the winter of 1882, and he had been trudging home from work when Shylock had told him the story. The old coot had beckoned Fogg closer, off the snow-covered track, to share in the heat of a small fire burning in a rubbish bin. The evening had been devastatingly cold, cold enough to freeze a young boy's fingers and toes into icicles numb enough to pluck right off his hands and feet. Fogg hadn't questioned the offer of kindness, and had stood gratefully in the heat of the fire, shivering violently as the flames banished the knives of cold from his bones.

"There is a price for sharing a poor man's fire, boy." Shylock had warned him. Fogg had panicked, had looked around him for the fastest means of escape.

"I ain't got any money, sir." Fogg had croaked in terror, as always, his incorrigible honesty overcoming facets of his fear and his instinct to run away.

Shylock grunted, and had flashed him a bright green stare from under the ridge of his great grey eyebrows. "My price is nothing so crude, boy. I wouldn't take your money even if I had felt so inclined. I am no stock broker and no bond dealer."

Shylock spoke like an educated gentlemen. The young Fogg hadn't known many of the words, so he had kept his mouth shut and nodded when he needed to nod.

"You have to listen." Shylock tapped his maggoty earlobe for emphasis. "Listen to one of my stories."

Fogg had continued to nod like a dumb mute. The fire was so invitingly warm on his frozen back, and he couldn't see himself leaving so soon, going back to the household he despised . . .

"There once was a fisherman," Shylock began, "from Canarsie, like us. He was also exceptionally poor, again, like us. His business had not had much success over recent years. In time, his debts cost him his charter, his crew, his wife and children, and his honor as a working man. After a time, he was reduced to wading in the muddy shallows of the river with nought but a fishing pole and a chunk of diseased meet stolen from the factories to be used as bait."

Fogg had listened to the tale wide-eyed, and in a child's naivety, did not think for a minute the destitute conditions of the fisherman rivaled his own.

Shylock continued after clearing some phlegm from his throat. There was blood in his spit, staining the brackish snow crimson. "Anyway, one day, Lady Luck decided to shine down upon our hapless fisherman. He caught something!"

Fogg smiled in delight.

"He had not eaten in almost a week, save for a few slivers of his bait, and this fish was as long as his arm! It would feed him for days! He took out his knife, no more than a crescent of broken glass, and prepared to slit the fish's throat."

Shylock paused, and Fogg waited impatiently. He was hopping from foot to foot with anticipation.

"Well? Did he kill't?" Fogg asked eagerly.

"Have you ever killed a man?" Shylock held him with those peridot eyes. "Have you ever been asked to take a life, snuff out an existence in the blink of an eye? End a possible future before it has even begun?"

Fogg shook his head numbly. No, he had not.

"Then how do you think the fisherman was able to slaughter that fish, eh boy? His knife lay poised for the kill, but as he looked into the creature's marbled eyes, felt it struggling in his grasp, felt its gills gasping for air, he couldn't bring himself to end it's life, even if it meant starving himself for the next week. He spent days weeping over the impossible decision."

"What happened to him?" The fire was dwindling, and young Fogg had to be home to avoid a beating from his father.

"He died." Shylock said simply, "He wasted away debating whether or not he could do the deed. In not taking a life, he destroyed his own. In adhering to his morality, he destroyed himself. Sometimes, not acting can torture you for the rest of your days."

_For the rest of my days._

Fogg's Colt was hot and smoking in his hand, the heat contrasting with the chilly breeze tussling his hair. His mind, which still dwindled in the memories of twenty years ago, was numb and uncomprehending as he darted his gaze from his gun, to the steaming puddle of scarlet in the snow, to the ragged hole in Dagon's torso, to his blank eyes, and then back to his gun. Something refused to make the connection between the four impossible yet eerily relevant details. Shylock's poor man wasn't supposed to kill the fish. He _couldn't_.

"You were going to kill me, Dagon." Fogg murmured to his brother's body.

Dagon Fogg, alias Martin Cooper, did not respond. His smoky eyes stared into the fathomless depths of the night sky, seeing everything but knowing nothing. But his stiff lips were curled into a grimace over bared teeth. Even in death, he was sneering at his little brother.

_You did this_, He seemed to say with his corpse grin, mocking him, _Congratulations. You have become a part of Victoire Fogg's legacy. You have been pushed over the thin line to our side_.

"I had to." Fogg's lower lip trembled. "In the name of justice. In the name of what's fair. It was either you or me."

_Whose justice, little brother? Your's, a warped fabrication of benevolence? Or that of the Beast?_

"You would have destroyed me. The truth of my life would have been for nought if I hadn't done it!"

_There is no differentiation between your life and life itself. The only truth is one of survival and ultimate justice. We were oppressed and savaged our entire lives, crushed under the foot of our father and under the foot of circumstances beyond our control. Now it is time for us to be the savagers. I murdered because I had the power. The prey had become the predator. Vengeance must be delivered to maintain the balance of good and evil. The only true law in this chaotic universe is one of revenge: the Master's revenge on the Doctor, my revenge on our childhood, and now your revenge on me. _

"There is more to this world than endless killing!"

_You wanted justice, and so you killed the fish. You did what you had to in order to survive, and in by doing so you have proven the black truth you have railed against your entire life. There is no pure good in this world, only the endless cycles of revenge._

"Fine." Fogg pressed the barrel of his gun against his temple. "Then I take revenge upon myself."

_What do you think that will do? You will not be proving anything._

"But at least I'll be doing this godforsaken world some good at last. The cycle ends with me, Dagon. Your black truth dies with me."

Harmarmalafarvalin Fogg squeezed the trigger, and he knew no more.

It was Christmas Day.

* * *

"Is he . . . d-dead?"

Nikola Tesla did a cursory inspection of the Master's prone form, lifting the collar of his cloak to rest two fingers on his coratid. "I do not believe so. He is still breathing, albeit shallowly."

"Then I won't feel guilty about doing this!" Peri had risen unsteadily to her feet, and now her face was flushed crimson with anger. She scrunched the sleeves of her dress up to the elbow and walked menacingly towards the Master's unconscious body. Tesla stopped her with a well-meaning but firm hand on her shoulder.

"There has been enough bloodshed, Miss Brown," he said quietly, "do not do yourself the dishonor of stooping down to his level."

She shrugged off his grip, glaring at him with flashing hazel eyes. "But you saw what he did to the Doctor, to me! He was going to use me to tear the freakin' fabric of history apart!"

"An endeavor at which he failed."

"He came pretty damn close, if you ask me. Too close for my comfort! And much good you were when he put me into that machine!"

"Yes . . . I must apologize for my inability to intercede on your behalf." Tesla looked grave. "Had I been quicker, I would have saved you from much of the discomfort of the experience, of being wrenched out of your regular time-frame reference. The Time Jump is extremely disorientating and very disconcerting. It is a process that goes against all the laws of nature. I am sorry."

Peri stared at him. "You're . . . apologizing? You? To me?"

"Do not make me say it again, Miss Brown," Tesla warned her stiffly, "because you will be sorely disappointed."

She said nothing, but a secret smile tugged at her lips. Filing her ribbing away for later, she asked, "So what happened to you? After the Master started the thing up, I mean."

Tesla had the grace to look a little contrite. "After the Time Jump process was initiated, I was . . . ah . . . locked in a broom closest in the back of the laboratory."

Peri had to purse her mouth shut to keep from laughing. Her smile threatened to explode into raucous chuckles. "A _broom_ closet? With an iron maiden and thumb screws, no doubt?"

He scowled. "No. The Master was far too concerned with the impending arrival of your friend the Doctor to give my imprisonment much thought. He had handcuffed me, but being as my hands are slimmer than the circumference of the cuff, it was not a difficult device to escape from. Opening the door was simply a matter of fiddling with the pin and tumbler of the lock using a piece of scrap metal sewed into the lining of my pocket. I never travel anywhere without my tools."

"Lucky for you you're such an obsessive compulsive tinkerer!"

"I do not believe in luck, Miss Brown—"

"_Tesla_." She warned.

His mouth twitched, the closest thing to a smile the man could muster. "But . . . on this one occasion, yes. I suppose it was lucky for me."

"And lucky for me as well, I shouldn't wonder!"

The Doctor moaned in pain, pressing a sweaty hand to his forehead as he lurched to his feet on wobbly legs. Every bone in his body shrieked and his muscles felt like wet Jell-O. Peri immediately left Nikola Tesla's side and threw her arms around the Doctor's torso, enveloping him in a massive bear hug strong enough to crack ribs. Tesla favored them with a slimly arched eyebrow.

The Doctor winced as he squeaked, "_Peri! You're deflating my lungs!_"

She quickly released him. "Sorry. Sorry, it's just . . . I'm so glad you're all right!"

The Doctor gave a small smile. "Ditto."

"You were two microseconds away from having your cranium turned inside out," Tesla said drily, "you live a charmed life, Doctor."

"The Master beat me! _Me!_ Never before have I felt so humiliated," the Doctor groaned, "so hopelessly abashed, so irrefutably embarrassed . . ."

Peri flapped a hand. "Okay okay okay, we get the point. No need for you to rattle off every synonym in the Merriam-Webster thesaurus. Shouldn't we worry about dissembling the, er . . ."

"Alternating current transformer equipped with a electrical resonant circuit." The Doctor finished brightly, much to Peri's irritation.

"The Master whimsically referred to it as a Time Jump." Nikola Tesla's bright blue eyes shone. A tiny quiver of excitement made his accent vibrate. "I am pleased to find you know so much about my device, sir."

"Your inventions are legend, Mr. Tesla." The Doctor beamed and said, "You are one of the greatest innovators of the recent age."

Tesla shifted his feet, too humble to admit his immense pride. "You do me a great honor, Lord of Time."

"Oh, I can't stand all the bowing and scraping. "Doctor" will do just fine." The Doctor extended a hand, and Nikola Tesla clasped it firmly. "And the pleasure is all mine."

"You have a remarkable grasp of electrical engineering and electrostatic physics, Doctor. I would have thought our technology to be far behind that of your own, perhaps in a different field of physical science altogether."

"Well," the Doctor gave a cheeky half smile, "it is. But I dabble here and there. Although, not to boast—"

"Here we go." Peri grumbled.

"It was I who first suggested to old William Thomson that the vortex structure of the atom could be postulated and explained through the mathematical theory of knots."

Tesla's eyes widened. "You have met Lord Kelvin!"

Peri rolled her eyes. Any conversation with the Doctor inevitably turned into a complete name-dropping hell. Before the two men could regress into technological gobbledygook using words she could hardly spell never mind understand, she interrupted, "Sorry to break up the mutual admiration committee, but the Time Jump?"

The Doctor looked sheepish. "Yes, right. Though your own components, Mr. Tesla, are perfectly acceptable appartus in the current time period, some of the Master's personal modifications are more than a little out of place. If some of this technology were to be discovered by the wrong people, if the Time Jump fell into the wrong hands . . . the consequences scarcely bare thinking about!"

"History could suffer just as much as if the Mater had built his contraption." Peri noted with unease.

"The future would change." Tesla added.

"So how do we destroy it?"

"That is what I am trying to figure out, Peri." The Doctor said in that patronizing way of his that set her teeth on edge.

"Mr. Tesla," the Doctor ignored his companion and turned his full attention to the inventor, "am I correct in assuming that this alternating current transformer comes equipped with a core that transfers the varying current in the primary winding into a state of magnetic flux that induces a electromotive force in the secondary winding?"

Tesla nodded effusively. "Of course, that is a standard component of most transformers. But Doctor . . ."

The Doctor snapped his fingers. "Ah ha! And in order for the Master to establish an artron energy bridgehead to the Time Vortex, he would have altered the core in such a way that the resulting electromotive force would be temporally-sensitive in nature! In effect, he has turned the core into a chronon energy generator!"

"Yes," Tesla looked pained, "but Doctor . . ."

"Take that core out of the Time Jump device and it's about as useful as a Dalek with a didgeridoo! It's just a matter of finding the core in the belly of this great beast . . ."

"DOCTOR!" Nikola Tesla thundered. Both Peri and the Doctor jumped a good three inches in the air.

"Erm . . . yes?" The Doctor gulped.

"I just wanted to tell you that I took the liberty of removing this," Tesla held up a small black box covered in tight coils of coppery wire, around which tendrils of unnatural blue energy licked and jumped, "from the main transformer after my escape."

The Doctor's face was not as Earth-shatteringly excited as Peri would have thought. He did not break into a wide smile, laugh, or jump up and down in giddy glee. His expression had turned grim and stony, and if Peri didn't know better, she would have said melancholy.

"Good work, Mr. Tesla. May I have it please?"

Tesla hesitated for a split second, but his hand obeyed the Doctor's request almost on its own accord. A part of him was glad to be rid of the device, an invention that had been perverted far beyond the point of its benevolent use. He had grown to despise it.

Peri was not so accommodating of the Doctor's weird behavior. She had grown used to his odd quirks and annoying habits, and she knew immediately that something was wrong. "Doctor, what are you planning? And before you say a word, I'm warning you: don't you dare tell me to just trust you and wait outside."

The Doctor gave a wan smile. She was right: his expression _was_ sad. Very sad. His eyes were like raindrops on a stained glass window. "Peri . . . I need you to trust me. And wait outside with Mr. Tesla."

She could have strangled him. The sheer gall of the man! "Forget it, buster. I'm not leaving you!"

"Peri," he tried to explain, "in order for the Time Jump to be rendered completely inoperative, the core must be destroyed. And the core is infused with raw chronon energy. We cannot destroy it in the conventional sense because to do so would release a force strong enough not only to rewrite history, but to utterly obliterate it. I am holding, in essence, a temporal doomsday weapon. A temporal atom bomb. I have to detonate the core in a place where a state of temporal grace is maintained."

Peri exclaimed, "A TARDIS! The Master's TARDIS is against the other wall! I remember seeing it!"

"Yes. His TARDIS should encapsulate and contain the temporal explosion."

Peri's voice was very quiet when she asked, "But what about you? You'll be inside it—"

"Peri Brown," the Doctor asked firmly, his words toneless but strong, "do you trust me? _Really_ trust me?"

"Of course I do. But you can't ask me to just—"

"But I am, Peri. I'm asking you to trust me now. Go with Mr. Tesla. Get clear of Wardenclyffe Tower, and wait for me outside."

Peri stared at him. Her skin had prickled with cold, her senses had gone numb. Her tongue tasted dry. Her vision was blurry and spotted with seemingly random bursts of color. She couldn't hear anything besides the thumbing of her heart against her bruised ribs. The Doctor's words bounced off the back of her mind, refusing to register properly.

But she knew what she had to do. She saw it as clear as the sun, shining in her eyes in a summertime she barely remembered.

"Good luck, Doctor." Peri said thickly. She rested a hand on the Doctor's broad shoulder, hoisted herself up onto her toes, and kissed him full on the mouth.

The Doctor's eyes widened until they were as bugged and pale as golf balls. He stiffened, but Peri noted with a tiny bit of amusement that he didn't try to pull away, whether out of politeness or sheer shock. He didn't seem entirely sure _what_ to do, as a matter of fact. Once she was sure she had gotten her message across, Peri lowered herself back down to her feet and stuffed her hands into her shirtwaist's deep pockets. Nikola Tesla looked extremely uncomfortable, and seemed to have taken a profound interest in the ceiling.

"Remember me, okay?" Peri urged her old friend.

The Doctor looked a mite shell-shocked. His voice shook when he mumbled, "I'm hardly likely to now, am I?"

"That was the point, Doctor. Goodbye."

"Goodbye, Peri. Be wonderful."

"For you." She sniffed, "Always."

"No, Peri . . . Be wonderful for _you_."

She nodded glumly, not trusting herself to say much more. Tesla laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, and began to steer her towards the exit. The Doctor gave them one last look, full of regret and unspoken secrets, and went to search for the Master's camouflaged TARDIS.

As Peri crossed the threshold of the laboratory, she fondled the transformer core in her pocket, and planed her next move.


	23. Chapter 22: Once More Unto The Breach

_"The future will show whether my foresight is as accurate now as it has proved heretofore."_

___— Nikola Tesla, Electrical Experimenter, February, 1919 —_

* * *

Everything had gone absurdly quiet, and Peri couldn't help but be reminded of a hushed crowd before a concert, before the performers come on stage. The cymbals ring lightly in the breeze, the lights are dimmed, and the world waits to let out the breath it has squeezed into submission in its chest. There is no music, no caterwauling, no electric guitar solos, only the quiet mutterings of worried spectators, waiting apprehensively in a twilight world unused to the depths of absolute silence.

Wardenclyffe had been plunged into that state of detached, dreamy quiet, even though the corridors echoed with their footsteps, the rasp of their ragged breathing, and the tinder smoldering in the heat of the fires outside. Peri could hear her boots clattering on the stone floors, but the sound seemed distant and foggy, aqueous in that it dissolved in her mind like a wave breaking upon a windswept beach. Her heartbeat rushed in her ears, beating to the pace of her run. Tesla's hand was cold and clammy around her own. Her fingers intertwined with digits of ice as the two unlikely allies made their escape from Wardenclyffe, leaving the Doctor to face his fate alone in the dark and the silence.

Peri was overcome with a wave of nausea as her head contusions throbbed. She stopped short, pulling Tesla out of his jog to stand beside her. His wide, inquisitive eyes regarded her with concern as Peri shifted unsteadily on weak legs.

"I can't . . . see." She murmured, bringing a shaking hand to her forehead.

Tesla assured her, "It will pass. Take deep breaths and try to control your anxiety."

"Get the Doctor," she murmured urgently, "get the . . ."

Peri allowed her legs to give way. Her knees buckled and her exhausted body sank mercifully to the ground, too tired and too sick to go any further.

"Please, Miss Brown, you _must_ get up! Find the strength within yourself!" Tesla urged, "We cannot stop now. The Doctor cannot be swayed from his destined course of action . . . Miss Brown? Peri?"

She was still, her eyes rolled back in their sockets until nought but a crescent of white peaked from behind glimmering eyelids. Her breathing thickened, her clothes clung to her curvaceous body in a cold sweat.

Tesla swallowed. He was no medical expert, but he was a man of logic and calculated decision-making. There was no way for him to be sure if Miss Brown's condition was not due in part to the temporal anomalies, if the Master was not someway still responsible. If he was, then Peri's condition was far beyond his ability to rectify.

"Please, stay alive." Nikola Tesla whispered to her, his voice soft with an uncharacteristic vein of tenderness. He got to his feet, whirled around on his heels, and began to call for the Doctor.

Peri waited until Tesla had disappeared around the corner before stirring. She sucked an odd elixir of musty yet cold air into her lungs, not believing her good luck. She flexed her arms and legs, trying to banish the television snow of pins and needles in the recesses of her limbs. Her head still throbbed, but her facade had done its job. Tesla had gone, and the transformer core had begun to vibrate in her pocket, sending a shiver of heat up her thigh. At first she thought it may have been beating to the rhythm of her pulse, but as she listened carefully in the gloom, she realized that it was _ticking_, like Captain Hook's crocodile.

Peri had traveled with the Doctor long enough to know a time bomb when she felt one, and she didn't want to hang around for her own time to run its course. The core was growing unstable; she had to find the Master's TARDIS before it was too late.

The device pulsing against the side of her leg, Peri set off at a brisk jog down the corridor, keeping her eyes peeled for the Master's TARDIS, praying that Tesla's call for help had been enough to call the Doctor off from his own search. She prayed she would recognize it when she saw it. Unlike the Doctor's dilapidated police telephone box, the Master's TARDIS could be disguised as anything, from a wall of crumbly brick to any one of the computer banks in the main laboratory.

"Think, girlie," Peri muttered to herself, eyebrows knitted in a frown, "if I were a bearded whack-job hell-bent on blowing up the universe for shits and giggles, where would I hide my time machine?"

Peri's chilled fingers had been running along the contours of the brick, the corridor narrow enough to walk with each of her hands brushing a wall, when something like an electric prickle thrummed through the pad of her thumb. Her entire left side tingled as a shiver swept up the length of her arm, followed by an organic sort of warmth, like the heat of an embrace. A vibration, the purring of a living thing, emanated from a cream-colored column propped incongruously against the wall, but wide enough to block the corridor up ahead.

Peri smiled grimly. "If I were a bearded whack-job hell-bent on blowing up the universe for shits and giggles, I would, of course, hide my time machine in plain sight for all to see because I would have an airhead larger than the Hindenburg."

Peri rested both hands on the surface of the Master's TARDIS. The thrum of living matter was so familiar, yet subtly different. It felt rushed, somehow, possessed of the hurried energy of a dog tugging at its leash. Peri felt like she was stroking the fur of a tiger.

"Who's betting it's locked?"

She pushed. The side of the column folded like origami, and gave a small _pop_ as it shrank away into nothingness. The TARDIS opened to her, just as the ironic Baltimorean in her had expected it to.

"Well . . . you know what they say, Perpugilliam," she muttered, swallowing a gulp, "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more . . ."

Peri walked into the Master's TARDIS, and the darkness swallowed her.

* * *

The Doctor was growing agitated and very impatient. He had examined every console, computer bank, and workbench in the room, from the largest Tesla Coil down to the smallest vacuum tube, and he couldn't detect the Master's TARDIS amongst any of it. No piece of equipment gave off the detectable vibrations of a living capsule, no telepathic feathers tickled the Doctor's subconscious. Searching for a powered-down TARDIS amongst piles of anachronistic technology was like searching for a specific tree in a forest.

"Doctor! _Doctor!_"

He had heard Nikola Tesla's calls for help, but couldn't bring himself to answer them. His search tethered him to the laboratory, his mission held him fast.

"Doctor, have you taken leave of your auditory senses?!" Tesla burst into the room, his face puckered in anger and annoyance.

The Doctor favored him with a look that could fry bacon to a crisp. He huffed indignantly, "I most certainly have not! You, on the other hand, were supposed to be getting yourself and Peri out of here!"

"I am afraid that remains to be the problem at hand. Miss Brown is unwell."

"A little more specificity wouldn't go amiss, you know. I _am_ rather busy at the moment."

"She has fainted," Tesla explained hurriedly, "she is cold to the touch, and she is barely breathing. She requested that I send for you, and I suspect that her condition may be directly related to her prolonged exposure to the time fissure through my machine. I suffered similar attacks after my own experiences with the device."

The Doctor bit his lip. "Are you _absolutely_ sure?"

"I cannot not make an educated hypothesis without more substantiated evidence, but I do know this: if I _am_ right, Doctor, and you do nothing, you would never be able to forgive yourself for your inaction, in this world or the next. Furthermore_—_"

"Excuse me, Bindle punk, it's urgent."

Tesla found himself elbowed out of the Doctor's way by a wiry, sandy-haired young woman in a burnt leather jacket. He was so stunned by her sudden arrival that he didn't even give voice to his outrage and indignation at having been interrupted.

"Amelia!" The Doctor seemed to recognize the impertinent woman. "What on Earth are you doing here?!"

"Nothing good, Cat." She seemed rattled. Her face was ashy. "Fred and I were going to leave you to it, but then we heard a load of gats going off from where you and Fogg ran off to."

"Gats?" Tesla inquired quizzically.

"Guns." The Doctor clarified, blood running cold, "Fogg and I got separated. There was a man, a tall, looming chap with_—"_

"Grey skin, mad eyes, and a capacity for kindness that leaves much to be desired." Tesla finished grimly, "Martin Cooper, one of the Master's hired and rather more dangerous associates."

"What about Fogg? Is he all right?" The Doctor pressed.

Amelia Earhart looked very pale. She willed herself to say, "Fred's with him now, Doctor. We came soon as we heard the clipping, and . . . well . . ."

The Doctor couldn't contain himself any longer. "_What happened_?"

"He's dead." She said numbly, her tongue dry and pasty. "Fogg went and shot himself."

There was an ominous silence as the Doctor struggled to come to terms with what Amelia had just told him. He repeated incredulously, "_Shot_ himself? He's committed . . . suicide?"

"Evidently. The other fella was dead too, but both men were bumped-off by bullets from the same gun: Fogg's Colt pistol."

"But why?" The Doctor asked in utter disbelief, his eyes glistening, "Why would he turn the gun on himself? It doesn't make any sense!"

Tesla closed his eyes. He said a small prayer his mother had taught him when he was very young, recalling the words from memory. "Some things are not meant to be understood, Doctor. Some pains . . . simply run too deep."

Amelia considered Tesla properly for the first time. He was perhaps a little older than the Doctor, thin and very tall. He was stooped with the fatigue of a much older man, his face sallow from lack of sleep. He looked like, she thought, a particularly flustered lamp pole. But in his clean features and bright eyes she saw in him a subtle grace that was equal parts irritating and admirable. She found herself developing a grudging respect for the man.

"You're Tesla, right?" Amelia asked him carefully, aware of the man's reputation as a bit of an unpredictable eccentric.

"Yes."

"Ah. You look tidier without all your pigeons." She didn't say any more to Tesla after that, ignoring his outright offense and choosing instead to return her attention to the Doctor. "I'm very sorry about Fogg. I know you cared about him, in your own way."

The Time Lord shook his head sullenly. He said, "It is not your place to apologize, Amelia. Mr. Fogg made his choice, but we can only guess at what horrors drove him to his end. His secrets died with him. I just wish . . ."

The Doctor trailed off, staring into the far distance. Absently, he felt for the transformer core in his pocket, just to assure himself of some of the solidarity of his mission, that the deaths of his friends would not be in vain.

It wasn't there.

He thrust his hands into his trouser pockets, turning the contents inside out until a yo-yo, a ball of string, a bag of mint humbugs, a few firecrackers, and a dog whistle fell with a clatter to the floor. But the transformer core was not amongst the debris. The Doctor's blood began to boil. He knew _exactly_ where the core would be.

"_PERI!_"

* * *

"Oh lord."

When Peri stepped into the Master's TARDIS, a force field telescoped from the roundeled walls and folded itself around her, sealing her within the console room. She cursed herself for her blatant stupidity. Obviously the Master would have set traps, would have prepared for an incursion of some kind! He was as paranoid as he was crazy!

Bereft of any better options, and remembering the Doctor's responses to such situations, Peri began to hammer the side of the force field with a balled fist. Five minutes and a very sore set of knuckles later, she had not so much as put a dent in it. No matter how hard Peri rapped against the pulsating wall of blueish energy, it would not give way. She doubted anyone but the Master would be able to deactivate it.

"You've really gone and put a foot in it this time, Peri." She berated herself. The transformer core was growing increasingly unstable in her pocket, and she could have sworn the fabric of her dress was beginning to smolder. As she removed it, blue tendrils of energy simmered from the device, and it pulsed powerfully in her hand, forcing her heart to beat to the same rhythm.

A thought occurred to her as she held the core in an outstretched hand: what if the force field was _not_ one of the Master's traps at all? The Doctor had always said his TARDIS was alive in some obscure sense. What if the Master's ship had somehow sensed the imminent destruction of the core and had activated a barrier to contain the explosion and protect itself from the effects? Peri thought it was awfully clever, if not for the fact that the ship had succeeded in trapping her within an impenetrable bubble of temporal grace right along with the core.

The entrance to the console room was wide open, and Peri could hear shouts coming from outside. The Doctor was bellowing her name at the top of his rather impressive set of lungs. He sounded stark raving mad.

She laughed cynically, "No difference there, then."

Peri settled herself down on the console room floor, clutching the transformer core to her chest. The lighting of the Master's TARDIS was low, practically nonexistent. What little illumination there was cast long, fluid shadows across the room. A dark silhouette of Peri's hunched frame reflected back at her from the dark wall, gazing at her from a faceless void. Peri stared at it for a long time, pretending her shadow was about to be blown to kingdom come by the exploding core, not herself. She felt like a dream image viewed through a camera obscura, a life reflected upside down and cast in darkness, a spectered vision that resembled her true self but didn't quite hold up under closer scrutiny.

She hugged her knees. Her shadow hugged its knees as well. She held the glowing transformer core up to her face. The phantom on the wall did the same. She placed the core at her feet and stared at it. The shadow placed the core at its own feet . . .

And then looked intently at Peri.

"_Peri!_" A voice like a howling freight train broke through the force field and banged against her ear canal. "_What the hell do you think you're doing?!_"

And then the Doctor came charging in, all bombastic swagger and bluster and complete indignation. He went striding straight for her, but the force field stopped him dead in his tracks. He leant a shoulder against the blue-hued barrier and pushed with all of his substantial strength, but for all the good it did, he may as well have been pressing against a brick wall with a teaspoon.

"It won't work," Peri's voice bubbled from inside the sphere, "trust me, I've tried."

"You stole the transformer core!" The Doctor fumed, his face mottling in rage.

Peri shrugged. "It's like Kathy used to say . . . never trust a girl who kisses with one hand."

"Give it back _this very instant, Perpugilliam Brown!_"

"If you could hear yourself . . . you sound like some toddler's petulant mother!"

The Doctor ignored her and strode towards the control console. He slipped his bony fingers under one of the stiff lips of metal, finagling the panel of rotor dials, computer terminal screens, and what-such other buttons off of the mushroom-shaped console. The complicated controls fell away to reveal a veritable yarn ball of thin cables, blinking lights, and suspiciously organic-looking circuitry. The mass of wires hummed like machinery while whistling a quiet, eldritch song like a whale or a dolphin. The Doctor's dextrous fingers froze mid-fiddle and his jaw dropped open. No matter how many wires he replugged or buttons he pressed, the console remained cold and dead.

"The controls are isomorphic!" He said under his breath, "The old fool made the TARDIS operation one-to-one!"

Peri told him, "You can't do anything, Doctor. This is one thing you can't change."

"I can try!" He bellowed, and began to pull wires at random. The Master's TARDIS trumpeted in anger, and a blue spark jumped from the wire jacks and struck the Doctor on the fingers. He yelped and recoiled from the live circuit, jamming his burnt fingers into his mouth.

"Stop! Just . . . stop." Peri stood and pressed her nose against the curved boundary of the force field. "You're hurting yourself for nothing."

"You're not nothing!"

"But my chances of . . . you know, actually _surviving_ this are nothing."

The Doctor looked truly pained. He spluttered hurriedly as his anger gave way to outright panic, "Peri, you shouldn't have done this. This was _my_ duty. It was _my _burden to bear as one of the Master's own race. As a Time Lord."

"I know, I know." Peri smiled weakly. "You plot, you plan, and you trust things to go according to your design. And when they don't, all hell breaks loose. But perhaps this _wasn't_ your duty. Perhaps, just this once, this was something you were supposed to stand by and watch. You know, the Master said something to me—"

"Peri, if he somehow coerced you, threatened you into doing this . . ."

She ignored him, "He told me that I have a remarkable propensity for inspiring martyrdom in others, that too many people sacrifice their lives for me. And he was right. You . . . Frobisher . . . so many of the people we've met on our travels . . ."

"You can't throw your life away for _that!_ For an idea that may or may not have a grain of truth in it!"

"I'm not throwing my life away! Don't you dare try to convince me that my sacrifice is a waste!" Peri yelled, "Ideas are the most important things in the universe. It's from ideas that we learn how to live and love, learn when to seek revenge and when to extend the hand of forgiveness. I'm dying for the idea that order will triumph over chaos and that I can shape my own destiny. I have chosen to alter this one little fixed point, swap your life for my own. I want _you_ to live, Doctor."

"But I don't." He whispered, "Not at this cost."

She shook her head. "When Frobisher first took your form, I got to thinking about the differences between your sixth body and your fifth body. My last memories of your former self were those of him dying trying to save my life. I wondered if you were capable of the same thing . . . if the time came, would you lay your own life on the line for such a small thing as me."

"And you would." Peri's eyes shone with tears. "You would. When you took that transformer core from Tesla, when you went looking for the Master's TARDIS, I knew immediately that you would! Of _course _you would! You are the bravest man I have ever known, Doctor. You have done so much for this world, so much that the universe will forever be in your debt. All the universe, that is, except me."

"No . . ."

"Balance. You once gave your life to save me. And now it's my turn to save you. To save all of us."

"You can't!" He cried.

"I can and I will. I'm stubborn and unreasonable, remember? So go, Doctor!" She pressed her palm to the force field. "Get out of here. The core won't last much longer."

The Doctor's voice had gone squeaky with the effort of holding his emotions in check. "Peri, I . . ."

"I know, Doctor." She sniffed, "I know."

The light rippling from the core suddenly swelled and expanded.

"Go!" Peri screamed, "If I ever meant _anything _to you then GO!"

The Master's TARDIS suddenly filled with a blazing halo of light, the same light that had guided Lady Lindy to Wardenclyffe Tower so many hours ago. The force field cracked as it struggled to contain the huge temporal explosion. It consumed Peri, melting her into the folds of the light. The Doctor averted his eyes, the heat searing the hairs on the back of his hands. He was forced to retreat, the light pressing him out of the door and back into the Wardenclyffe corridor like the hand of God. The interior of the Master's TARDIS exploded in a spectrum of blinding color and deafening sound, and then the column slid shut, and the world was plunged into cold, dead silence once more.

The Doctor whispered, "Peri . . ."


	24. Chapter 23: Sunrise Over Wardenclyffe

_"This new world must be a world in which there shall be no exploitation of the weak by the strong, of the good by the evil; where there will be no humiliation of the poor by the violence of the rich; where the products of intellect, science and art will serve society for the betterment and beautification of life."_

_____— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

An ethereal light glinted off Nikola Tesla's blue eyes. Through the bright haze, he spied a figure standing before a beige-colored column, stacked incongruously against the corridor wall. The figure's silhouette was as black as pitch against a backlight of silver.

He was alone.

"Doctor?"

The pearly glow burst from between cracks in what Tesla assumed was the Master's TARDIS. The light from the column illuminated the dark tower corridor, but threw long shadows over the features of the Time Lord standing in front of it. The Doctor's halo of golden curls were bleached white from the glowing aftermath of the time explosion, but his face was unreadable, bathed in shadow. His bright eyes were glazed, shielding the outside world from his thoughts.

"Doctor?" Tesla called again.

"It's done."

The Doctor did not turn his face from the cream column, and his whisper was so quiet he barely heard himself.

Amelia Earhart stood beside Tesla, leaning sideways on her good foot, silently observing her old friend. She prided herself on being an excellent judge of character, and she knew the Doctor better than most people: she recognized the undercurrent of immeasurable grief marking what little words he whispered. She saw through the curtains drawn over his eyes, saw into the black void that had cracked open within his hearts.

"Doctor . . ." Amelia took a few steps forward. "Where—"

"She's gone." The Doctor's voice was molasses, slow and thick, "I couldn't stop her."

Amelia closed her eyes, blinking away hot tears. Lady Lindy, Mr. Fogg, and now Miss Brown. The fact that she was still alive seemed an insult in of itself. "I am so, so sorry."

Nikola Tesla lowered his head in despair. His chin quivered and the back of his throat stung. Though his mind was free, the temporal fog having been banished for the first time since his subjugation to the Master's will, he couldn't think clearly through the crushing waves of grief. He felt hollow, bereft, as brittle as a dry porcelain urn.

The Doctor let out a quick breath of air. He sighed, "There's nothing more to be said. What is done . . . is done."

It was all he could manage through a quivering lump in his throat. The Doctor sniffed, trying and failing to keep a single, crystalline tear from tracking down his cheek. He rested a hand on the door of the Master's TARDIS, on the barrier that had held back armageddon. The surface was warm against his palm, like sun-kissed stone.

Grief, the Doctor found as he ran his hand down the pockmarked surface, was the color yellow. It was the color of sunflowers in summertime and crisp lemonade on a hot afternoon. It was the color of tangy sherbet and sweet honey. It was the color of laughter and the immeasurable power of joy in the eyes of a friend.

Grief was the color of happy days Peri would never know.

"It may not seem like it," the Doctor turned and met Earhart and Tesla's eyes, holding them with the severity of his gaze, "but I always miss my friends once they're gone."

"We don't doubt that, Doc." She assured him.

He hung his head. His shoulders slumped with the weight of his shame and his sorrow. "But I do. I am _very_ old, older than most people can even _begin_ to comprehend. And I have experienced so much. I have endured burdens and pains and seen horrors that chill the blood. I am haunted by my memories. And I think, as a defensive mechanism or due to my own arrogance, the details of such atrocities are becoming too routine, too humdrum to register on an emotional level anymore."

Nikola Tesla felt a strong affinity with the Doctor's sentiment. He couldn't quite understand the purpose of superfluous emotion, but he was no stranger to the deeper sensations of depression and disappointment. Of crushing loss. The death of his mother had been the most devastating blow of his life, and it was a sorrow that had defined him from his veneer of dispassion to the streak of white in his mop of jet-black hair. Despite what others thought of him, Tesla did not have such a powerful superiority complex that he thought himself above his own inner weakness.

Despite what Peri had thought of him, he was very human, possessed of all the fallacies thereof.

"It's worse now . . ." The Doctor continued. Now that he had squeezed the words past the choking sob buried in his throat, he couldn't stop. "When my friends leave in good faith, I always know that I can see them again. I never do, but the reassurance of their continued existences remain. Peri will have no future. It is not the fact that Peri is de . . . gone, that causes me to grieve. All good things must end. Planets come and go. Stars perish. Matter disperses, coalesces, forms into other patterns, other worlds. Nothing can be eternal. It is that fact that I will never again see her smile, never again hear her laugh, and never again be on the receiving end of her snide sarcasm that fills me with an inconsolable sense of hearts-ache. The little quirks that made Peri the unique young woman she was . . . they're gone."

Nikola Tesla walked forward, putting one foot of cement in front of the other until he stood shoulder to shoulder with the Doctor. They both stared numbly at the scarred surface of Master's TARDIS. The glowing fire of the time explosion had dissipated into the darkness. The only illumination came from the reflection of the starlight in the Doctor's quiet tears.

The two men, tied together by massive cosmic forces and the loss of their comrade, could not have been more physically contrastive. Whereas the Doctor was stouter, fuller in figure, and very expressive of face, Nikola Tesla stood a good four inches taller, was unhealthily thin and sallow, and revealed nothing from behind the intelligent stare of his cobalt eyes. They contrasted like a Mark Rothko painting, but as they stood together in mourning of Peri's passing, Amelia Earhart began to realize that they were not so different. Behind their veneers of intellectual superiority and self-righteousness, they hid an existential torment away from the judging fixation of the universe. They were the fighters of battles they possessed no desire to win at the terrible costs fate demanded.

"She is not gone, Doctor," said Tesla. He lay a long, ropy hand on the Time Lord's slumped shoulder. "I have begun to realize that time is not uniform. The linear progression of the past to the future is an illusion, one propagated from the minds of beings too primitive to understand the universe as you do."

"If you are trying to make a point, Mr. Tesla . . ." The Doctor murmured wearily.

Tesla inclined his head, as he did whenever impatience struck him. "I am making a very important point, Doctor. One that you fail to understand despite your affinity with time."

The Doctor's sensitive pride prickled. He gave Tesla a look from down the bridge of his nose.

"Miss Brown told me, soon after Frobisher's death, that from a non-linear perspective of time, one is forever living out the worst moments of one's life. As time is nonuniform, an infinite quantity of moments from all perspectives of past, present, and future are happening all at once."

"Careful, Mr. Tesla," the Doctor remarked, "relativity isn't due for a few more years yet."

"My point being, Doctor, that every moment of time interchanges and deliquesces like raindrops in a massive pool of water. You know this, and can see it. Yes, we are forever living out the worst moments of our lives, but we are also forever living out the moments of indescribable ecstasy, of unrivaled joy. Peri is still alive, Doctor. She will never truly die. Her memory lives on in time immemorial."

The Doctor closed his eyes against more silent tears. His voice was thick with emotion when he stated, "I understand perfectly, Mr. Tesla. But my affinity with time is not a blessing. It is a curse. I can never see her again, and my past and future memories of her will forever remind me of that fact."

"I am a Time Lord who watches people come and go, love and hate, wither and die, whilst I do nothing but feel my hearts break. Perhaps even Mr. Fogg glimpsed some of the hopelessness of circular time, some of the pointlessness of the consequences of our actions and the echoes of our lives going round and round in an endless cycle . . ." The Doctor sighed, remembering the skinny fellow with the carroty hair, nicotine teeth, gruff Brooklyn accent, and incorrigible sense of honor and honesty, "Poor man. He was searching for a truth that didn't exist."

"_The truth is incontrovertible_," a ghostly voice echoed from around the corridor, "_malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is._"

As Tesla and Earhart gazed in all directions in bewilderment, the Doctor's eyes widened in shock. He knew that voice! It was like the whisper of autumn leaves as they floated on the wind, it was like the clink of tea in the best of china cups, it was like the rustle of dry grass parted by a cricket ball . . .

_Impossible_!

"Get back!" He bellowed, waving Tesla behind him. "GET BACK!"

The Master's TARDIS began to glow as the entire structure was melted into the arms of a burning aurora. The Doctor, Nikola Tesla, and Amelia Earhart shielded their eyes as the beige pillar exploded into a column of burning golden energy. They averted their sight as the ichorous aura reached a blinding crescendo of light and color brighter than the surface of the sun, and then died away to leave nothing but colorful speckles dancing on the inside of their seared eyelids.

The Doctor dared to remove his hand before the others, his eyes watery and blurred from the brightness. His sight took a few moments to readjust to the darkness. When he clapped his eyes on what had replaced the Master's TARDIS in the middle of the corridor, he had to take a moment to remind himself that he wasn't hallucinating.

The Fifth Doctor, dressed in his old costume, haloed in a curtain of ethereal gold, stood in place of the column. In his arms, he carried . . .

"P–Peri?" The Sixth Doctor breathed incredulously.

Tesla and Earhart blinked multiple times, and they still didn't believe what their eyes were telling them.

"But . . . how?" The Doctor demanded weakly. His head spun, inebriated with a newfound sense of hope.

The Fifth Doctor smiled wryly. "Nasty objects, staser rifles. A direct blast will kill their targets dead on the spot, but . . . they will not disintegrate them."

Tesla murmured, "But I was there. I saw you executed."

"What you saw, Mr. Nikola Tesla," the phantom clarified, albeit a bit smugly, "was Mr. Frobisher's Whifferdill form break into motes of dust immediately before the rifle bolt hit me. I allowed myself to be scattered upon the wind, whereupon I drifted through Wardenclyffe and transformed myself into a TARDIS, ready, when the time was right, to absorb the kinetic energy of the time explosion and save the life of Peri Brown."

The Doctor's wide mouth hung upon like a codfish's. "So you're . . . Frobisher?"

He shook his head. "No. At the risk of breaking the Blinovitch Limitation Effect, I am _you_, Doctor. I am your Fifth Self. Mr. Frobisher kindly allowed me to project myself through his mesomorphic form in order to save his life and, using my knowledge of transdimensional engineering, save the life of Peri and prevent the destruction of the entire universe. Not a poor job for a dead amalgamation of your persona, wouldn't you say, Doctor?"

"I suppose so, er . . . Doctor."

A nasal female voice groaned, "I'm certainly not complaining."

Peri Brown flickered her brown eyes open. She felt groggy, like one does when an alarm clock goes off right in the middle of a dream. She darted her gaze around in alarm, thinking for a moment that she was still within the shield containing the time explosion. But when she saw the Fifth Doctor's young, blond face staring back at her, she shook her head in disbelief, but smiled.

"Is Frobisher . . ?" She asked vaguely.

"He's fine, tucked away in the corner of my subconscious. But my future self looks a mite peeved, if you don't mind my saying so."

The Sixth Doctor was red-faced and fuming. Peri gulped, imaging steam coming from his ears. She flopped out of the arms of the Fifth Doctor and steeled herself for what she knew what going to be the telling-off of the millennium.

"Of all the simple-minded, asinine, thoughtless, reckless, mind-bogglingly _stupid_ things to do, Perpugilliam Brown!"

Despite his busted ankle, Peri was unpleasantly surprised at how quickly the Doctor could cover ground. He bore down upon her like a Spanish fighting bull, blowing smoke from his nostrils. Peri flinched against the coming verbal assault.

Then she felt herself being swept up into the tightest, warmest embrace a man could muster. The Doctor clung to her, and she wrapped her hands around him and hugged him back. Protected, sheltered, and most incredibly, alive after all she'd been through, Peri couldn't help but shed a few tears, wetting the fabric of the Doctor's broad shoulder.

"Please, don't _ever_ do anything like that ever again." He murmured against her hair.

"You're one to talk."

He chuckled as they pulled away. Peri's eyes were red and puffy from crying, but she wore a wide smile.

"You're harder to bump-off than we give you credit for, Peri Brown." Amelia Earhart laughed, "And that's not necessarily a bad thing!"

Peri stiffened for a fraction of a second. But then the ice melted away, and she shot the famous aviator what she hoped was a cordial grin. "You and me both, Amelia. I would ask you what the hell you're doing here, but after all I've seen today, I'm prepared to take just about anything in my stride."

"It's a long story, doll. The Doc will tell it to you in his good time."

Nikola Tesla, meanwhile, had tuned out their repartee, and had fixed a knowing stare on the Fifth Doctor. Two pairs of blue eyes, one stormy and tumultuous, the other reserved and calm, met across the space of the corridor. An understanding passed between them like a spark of electricity between the filaments of a lightbulb.

"You cannot stay here." Tesla murmured.

The Doctor nodded gravely. "I know. The temporal breach is closing. I must relinquish Frobisher's body or remain tied to it forever."

"But?"

"But I don't want to go back." He protested quietly, his blond fringe shadowing the melancholy light in his eyes, "Back to the darkness . . . back to the eternal expanses of oblivion, the frontier beyond life. It is so very lonely."

Peri, the Sixth Doctor, and Amelia Earhart had grown quiet.

"You have to let Frobisher go." The current incarnation of the Doctor said sadly.

The Fifth Doctor looked up and stared at his future self. "One day, you will regenerate, you will take your journey into the dark subconscious of your psyche, and then you will have some pity. Pity for yourself, but pity nevertheless. Perhaps then, and only then, will you understand the true extent of loneliness."

He turned to face Peri, and gave her a knowing smile. "Before I go, I have a final request of you, Perpugilliam Brown."

* * *

The ocean was as smooth as glass, reflective like a mirror, unbroken by the wind. The stillness after a terrible storm, the early morning was peaceful and unfeasibly calm: frozen in time like a snowflake trapped under a microscope. A puff of veiled grey cloud drifted in front of their faces as Peri's breath mingled with the Doctor's. Their unspoken words curled into nameless shapes that drifted into the open air and hung suspended over the pristine grey water. A hint of daylight peeked from over the horizon, streaking the sky with ribbons of gold and crimson. The grey world was set alight with the fire of the new dawn.

Peri and the Fifth Doctor sat together on the frost-crisped grass, looking out to sea. Though he retained his radiant smile, his pallor was waxy, his face pale. His flaxen hair glinted like locks of ice in the predawn light. But his eyes were a brilliant green from the reflection of the rising winter sun. His gaze lost amongst the vast expanses of gloaming eternity, Peri thought he had never looked more beautiful, or more sad.

"Look, Doctor." She whispered, "The sunrise. A new day. A new beginning. Isn't it wonderful?"

The Doctor shuddered as his strength ebbed. He felt himself being drained away, sucked from the hollow shell of Frobisher's body. "Always see a sunrise before a death, Peri. It is a reminder that not all endings need be feared, nor be everlasting."

She couldn't help but see the irony. "Like you. Regenerating, starting anew. You go through bodies like I go through pairs of socks."

He smiled an empty smile, but then he winced in pain. His bright eyes, quicker than Peri could follow, began to dim.

"Is this death?" She breathed.

"It's all right, Peri. It's all right. Getting dark now . . . the shadows setting in, the final curtain closing. It's my time. Time to say goodbye. I am pleased . . . I was able to see . . . my last sunrise."

"Oh, Doctor. I don't think I can go through this again." Peri murmured. The sunrise shone on her wet cheeks and illuminated them like rivers of liquid glass.

"Tell me about Stockbridge." The Doctor whispered, his words quiet but insistent, as if his request were suddenly the most important thing in the universe, "Tell me about the cold autumns before an early winter, near the end of a season, when there is just a hint of colder days to come. Let me see a Stockbridge sunrise, like I used to when I ate my breakfast on the hillside with Nyssa. Nyssa? Is that you, Nyssa? . . . I can't see properly. It's so dark."

Peri didn't think. She just spoke, somehow finding the right words . . .

"We're laying in the grass on the village green, looking up into a predawn sky. There's the crisp smell of morning dew hanging in the air, plus the pungent burn of woodsmoke from the cottages. The grass is scratchy against the backs of our necks, but the feeling is oddly pleasant, like a hand-knitted sweater or a pair of wool socks. There is the tang of fall rain in the air, but it's not enough to stop us watching the sunset through the purple clouds. The sky is red, but blended with so many other colors as well: yellows and oranges and maizes and maroons. The sun is rising like a golden guardian over the eastern hill, shining through the clouds and setting our faces aglow. The light catches your smile. You're happy, and at peace. You know that there are games of cricket to be won, tea to be made, and the rest of the universe to be put on hold because that one moment, that one seemingly random moment, is so precious. The sunrise over Stockbridge is the most magnificent thing in all the cosmos."

The Doctor relaxed, and finally allowed his tired soul to retreat back to the dark place. His gaze was worlds away when he told the frosty air, "Something is added to cricket by the angle of the sun as it stands at four o'clock in early September. There is a hint of colder days approaching, of aspects of our lives ending and returning . . . endings . . . I never liked goodbyes."

He lay his head gently against Peri's quivering shoulder, and let out a deep, contented sigh. He did not draw another breath.

"Goodbye, Doctor."

She lay him down on the grass, crossing his cold hands over his chest. The golden glow swam out of his body and hung in the space over the ocean, and then evaporated into the air. When the body stirred again, Peri knew it wasn't the Doctor coming back to life, or even regenerating. The original tenant was taking up residence again . . . Frobisher was returning. The incongruous form of an unconscious, battered, man-sized emperor penguin materialized on the frosty grass where the old body had once been, but Peri knew that she had lost someone she hadn't realized she had missed so very much.

He was gone. Forever. Again.

"Doctor, I'm so sorry." She whispered.

The Sixth Doctor, who had been standing from afar, watching silently, rushed forward and took Peri's shaking hands in his own. "You have nothing to be sorry for, Peri. None of this is your fault."

"I lied. I'm so, so sorry, but I lied."

"What about, my dear?"

"Stockbridge. I made it up. I've never been to Stockbridge. I lied to you, Doctor. I lied . . ."

The Doctor said nothing as Peri regressed into exhausted sobs. He held her hand as the winter sun emerged from beyond the boundary of the world, casting the hillside in gilded gold.

A new morning. A new world.

Wardenclyffe was waking up.


	25. Epilogue: Defender Of The Laws Of Time

_"Humanity will advance with giant strides. The mere contemplation of these magnificent possibilities expand our minds, strengthens our hopes and and fills our hearts with supreme delight."_

_— Nikola Tesla —_

* * *

Frobisher took a deep, bracing breath of fresh sea air.

"Hmm," he sighed contently, "salty."

"The vast expanse of the Atlantic Ocean, a sunrise on Christmas, and the dawn of a day free of any temporal paradoxes, and the best you can come up with is 'salty?'" Peri rolled her eyes. "You're kidding right?"

"No wait, hang on." Frobisher took another exaggerated sniff. He seemed to mull the smell over in his thoughts before deciding, "Salty _and_ fishy."

"You're impossible."

"You're just incapable of appreciating the finer things in this world, Peri." Frobisher rubbed his sleek flippers together. His beak clicked hungrily as he mused, "Fish. Fish is good. A live catch, or . . . fresh haddock fillets baked and lightly breaded and served with parmesan cheese. Delicious."

"You're barely awake five minutes and you're already thinking about food."

"Priorities, Peri. Priorities."

She frowned. "Now you come to mention it, I am a bit famished. I haven't eaten anything for something like 12 hours."

"The sooner we get off this rock and back to the TARDIS, the better." Frobisher agreed, "I'll cook you my special recipe."

Peri grinned. "Sounds divine. Oh, and Frobisher?"

"Yup?"

"It's really good to have you back."

Frobisher's strangely human eyes sparkled. "It's good to be back, Peri. How would you and the Doc ever manage without me?"

"I don't know, but we _did_ end up beating the Master and prevent the universe from being blown up while you were absent, thank you very much!"

"Ah ah ah, and who was it who saved your life and absorbed the time explosion?"

Peri stuck her tongue out. "The Doctor's fifth self, smart-ass."

"In whose body?"

" . . . Yours."

"Eeeee-xactly!" Frobisher grinned cheekily, poking her side with a wet flipper, "And where is the Master now?"

"Gone."

Peri and Frobisher turned from the cliff to see the Doctor and Nikola Tesla striding towards them. The Time Lord's eyes were narrowed and he had his arms crossed in piqued annoyance.

"Gone? Whatya mean, gone?" Frobisher asked, then added ruefully, "I was going to give that barmy donut hole a piece of my mind!"

The Doctor harrumphed, "He ran for it while my former self was vacating your body, Frobisher. Apparently, his _real_ TARDIS was hidden somewhere in Wardenclyffe's vaults, and whilst we were otherwise occupied_—_"

"He did a dine-and-dash." Frobisher finished.

Peri coughed. The Doctor shot her one of his looks. "This isn't funny, Peri! That . . . that _scoundrel_ is on the loose again!"

"What else is new . . ."

"What else is new? _What else is new?!_"

"In any case," Tesla interrupted what he suspected was going to be a long and arduous argument, "while I regret that the criminal is still at large, I will not be able to assist you in apprehending him. You are on your own, Doctor. I came to take my leave of you."

Peri knew the moment of his departure would inevitably come, but it still managed to shock her. She had known Nikola Tesla for the better part of a day, and yet it felt as though they had shared something that would haunt them for a lifetime. "You're staying here? On Long Island?"

He nodded. "Wardenclyffe is my creation, Miss Brown. It is my home. I am responsible for what happens to it, and I do not intend to let it fall into decay. It is time to bring some light back to this dark abode, to use the facility for its intended purpose: to create, not to destroy."

"An admirable sentiment, Mr. Tesla," the Doctor said, "and I have no doubt you will do great things here."

"Here, and at my laboratory in Colorado Springs," Tesla added, "there is still so much to be done. Still so much to discover. The Master's interference in my life shall not deter my mission. This new world must be a world in which there shall be no exploitation of the weak by the strong, of the good by the evil; where there will be no humiliation of the poor by the violence of the rich; where the products of intellect, science and art will serve society for the betterment and beautification of life. Even . . . life beyond the Earth. The universe is so much bigger than I could have ever suspected. This brave new world will need someone to bridge the way into the dawning of an age of new scientific innovation."

The Doctor smiled despite his disappointment in having let the Master escape. The inventor's incorrigible passion for creation and discovery was contagious. "That it will, Mr. Tesla. That it will. But, I must request one thing of you . . ."

"Of course, Doctor."

"Harmarm . . . Hamm . . . Harma . . ." The Doctor sighed, took a deep breath, and blurted out, "_Harmarmalafarvalin_ Fogg. I want you to bury him, on the cliff, overlooking the sea. I think he would want to be laid to rest under the open sky, where he could have seen the stars. He deserved his freedom. He deserved so very much . . ."

Tesla would take the sacred task very seriously. "Mr. Fogg will be buried in hallowed ground, Doctor. He was the man who never stopped believing in the truth, a fact which I will immortalize in stone. I will look after him."

"Thank you."

The Time Lord turned to his companions, the melancholia vanishing with his rapid mood swing. "Come along, you two. We have a long journey back to New York City ahead of us, and I intend to get back to the TARDIS in time for Christmas dinner! After we've dropped Amelia and Fred back in 1937 of course."

As the three began to walk (and waddle) away, Tesla called after their retreating backs, "Just a moment, Doctor! If I may have a private word with Miss Brown?"

The Doctor's face scrunched into a quizzical frown, but he conceded, "Of course. Frobisher and I will go and collect Amelia and Fred, shall we?"

"But they're already waiting for us!" Frobisher complained.

"_Shall we_?" The Doctor glared at the penguin, arching his blond eyebrows for emphasis.

"Oh . . . _right_." Frobisher winked knowingly. "Sure. Let's go talk to the flyboys. Yes. Good idea."

Frobisher and the Doctor stalked away, fighting every instinct to glance over their shoulders out of curiosity. Every time Frobisher tried, the Doctor grabbed his flipper and dragged him along through the heather.

Peri chuckled. "I feel like the kid who's been sent to the principal's office."

"I have no quarrel with you, Miss Brown."

"I wouldn't put it past you to start one. "

Tesla's expression hardened a fraction of a degree. Peri bit her tongue and apologized,

"Sorry, that was mean. What was it you wanted to say?"

He looked down at her intently. He wrung his hands as he said quietly, "I feel I must . . . say goodbye, properly."

Peri was silent. She widened her eyes, urging him to continue.

Tesla cleared his throat. "Oftentimes, we do not realize God has granted us a gift until we discover, through adversity, the measure of the gift on our own. You appeared to me in my moment of greatest anguish, as an angel in the dark. Though I pleaded with you not to come to Wardenclyffe, you did so anyway out of a sense of honor and an urge to do good. It was not until after your death that I realized how blessed I was to have someone with whom to share in my imprisonment, and to grant me something far greater . . ."

"Which was what?"

Tesla gently took Peri's hand in his own. He dropped something into her outstretched palm, and closed her fingers around it protectively. And then, with some difficulty, he let her go.

She cupped the small, ice-cold device in her hand. It was shaped like some kind of battery, or maybe a film canister. Peri unfurled her fingers to reveal a titanium grey cylinder, topped by shiny brass caps at both ends. It was Nikola Tesla's polyphase dynamo for alternating current, the same device he had protected from the Master so long ago, on a rainy March night in 1884.

"My humanity, Peri Brown. You gave me back my humanity."

Then Nikola Tesla's gaunt face twisted into a most unfamiliar expression.

He smiled.

It was very small, very forced, but he was smiling again, at last.

"There are few people who understand the greater things in this world, who can see beyond the cycles of revenge and needless violence to treasure that which makes life worth living. With your memory, I hope to impart some of your wisdom unto me. And for your friendship . . . I thank you."

Tesla held out his hand. Peri stared at it for a split second, ignored it, and flung her arms around his neck to pull him into a close embrace.

"You're already a greater man than anyone could ever hope to be, Nikola Tesla." Peri told him thickly, "Never forget that, because I certainly never will."

Tesla patted her shoulders awkwardly as he fidgeted within her embrace. He appreciated the sentiment behind the gesture, but he was still too uncomfortable and, if he were to be honest to himself, fearful to return her hug.

"One miracle at a time, eh, Miss Brown?" He chuckled as she released him.

"I'll hold you to that." She smiled sadly, and raised her hand in farewell. "Take care of yourself, Nikola."

"Farewell, Perpugilliam Brown, Defender of the Laws of Time."

She glowed with pride, her cheeks glowing crimson in the cold Christmas air. She spun on her heel and began to walk in the direction of Wardenclyffe Tower, back to the Doctor and Frobisher. Before she could march over the grassy knoll of the cliff and out of sight, Tesla called to her one last time,

"Miss Brown?"

"Yeah?"

He bit his tongue in indecision, but finally he said, "If I may give you a warning. I saw many things through my premature glimpse into the Time Vortex, and one of these things pertained heavily to you. Heavily to the Doctor, as well."

"We travel through time and space in a police box, Mr. Tesla. That should hardly come as a surprise."

"Your fate and his are woven together, Miss Brown, intertwined like creeping vine around a tree. Do you know what happens to the tree when the chord makes its home there, flourishes there?"

Peri shook her head warily, unsure as to where the conversation was going.

"The vine kills the tree, as surely as a man squashes an insect. Nothing good will come of your relationship with the Doctor, Miss Brown. Disaster feeds on him, and if you stay with him, soon it will feed on you."

Peri shivered as a cold wind whipped her hair. She and Tesla were left staring at each other for a few moments, before Peri broke the heavy silence by turning and sprinting in the direction the Doctor had gone. She told herself she was running from the cold, calculating glint in Nikola Tesla's eyes, but she wondered if she wasn't running from something else entirely. Something deeper. Something far more terrible than she could ever imagine, hovering unseen on the horizon of her future.

That was the last she ever saw of Nikola Tesla.

* * *

"So, how did it go?" The Doctor asked cheerfully.

"Oh . . . fine. Great." Peri pulled her coat tighter and looked at her shoes. "Can't complain."

Frobisher waddled up beside her. "Tell us . . . what did old Pigeon Features want?"

"Nothing. He just wanted to . . ." she fingered the dynamo in her pocket, and seriously considered throwing it over the cliff and into the ocean, never to see it again, "you know, say goodbye."

The Doctor frowned. "A bit anticlimactic. What did you make of it, Peri?"

She opened her mouth to say something profound, but all she managed was a feeble, "Let's just collect Amelia and Fred and get the hell out of here."

Frobisher and the Doctor shot each other a quizzical glance, but they didn't question Peri as they marched towards the wreckage of Lady Lindy, where the figures of Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan stood silhouetted on the hill, waving to them, ready to go home to 1937. The time fissure had closed, and the paradoxes of their dissapearances had resolved themselves into the timeline. The Doctor would be able to return them to their own time, granted they kept their heads down and stayed out of history's way.

As the TARDIS crew walked, the sun was rising behind their backs, and the sky was as brilliantly gold as the glowing heart of a TARDIS.

The Doctor broke the early morning quiet and began to hum a song to himself. Peri recognized it as an old nursery rhyme, but she stalwartly refused to be dragged into his childish twittering. Which, inevitably, meant that she was soon humming the tune off-key right along with him. Frobisher gave the Time Lord a wry smile, and then picked up the lyrics of the song . . .

_The winds have blown over the ocean_

_The winds have blown over the sea_

_The winds have blown over the ocean_

_And brought back my Bonnie to me_

* * *

The End


End file.
